


Take Care of the Unseen Things

by Zaniida



Series: Five Acceptable Bargains -- October AU Variants [2]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - SCP Foundation (Fusion), Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Bittersweet Ending, Creepyfest, Gen, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, October Content, Sensitive Readers: Tread Cautiously, Tags May Change, Tearjerker, Warnings May Change, the AU prompted a lot of changes to the canon elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-07-23 10:12:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16156940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaniida/pseuds/Zaniida
Summary: October is upon us again, and this time I'm drawing from the aesthetic of the SCP Foundation: Supernatural phenomena happen all the time, but there's a group that goes out of its way to ensure that the general public doesn't know this.Original Planned updates: October 1st, 9th, 16th, 23rd, 31st. For the full experience, don't wait too long to read an update. (The fic will still be up come November, but it'll be like watching a recording instead of seeing the live show.)ETA: Due to writer's block and some other factors, the third part got huge and got split up into several pieces, and only finished on the 30th.  I'm working on the forth part, which clearly didn't get completed by Halloween; there's a bit more to go before the fifth part (finale), which I hope will be posted before December (but with enough time between updates to let y'all can stew on the cliffhanger for a while).This sadly does mess with the timing of two related pieces, but there's nothing I can do about that.  Ah well; I tried.





	1. Unexpected Lull

**Author's Note:**

> As usual with **Creepyfest** content, all bets are off! There's no guarantee of any specific character making it out the other side intact or sane or even alive. However, I would classify this fic as _Bittersweet Tearjerker_ rather than _Horrifying Tragedy_ , so take that how you will. They'll probably be fine, right?
> 
> If you are not generally unsettled by the things you read, then you can probably ignore this next bit, but:
> 
> Due to the deliberately unsettling nature of this fic, and how I have chosen to craft it in order to maximize that quality, there is an unusual **Content Warning** right [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lB3ivFGocTIdc245kjzo2bg9349FoMaqWKllydXKjeA/edit?usp=sharing). For those who might get triggered or traumatized by certain elements, that adviso goes over the basics to help you decide whether or not to read this fic, and allows you to read a very spoilery warning if you think it'll help you.
> 
> Also: Phew! While trying to touch up some things, I ended up erasing my Summary and this note. Luckily, they were open in another tab, and I rescued them! Hope nothing else got accidentally deleted X|
> 
> ETA: Time to connect some dots here!
> 
> Many thanks to all the participants. If you haven't yet picked up on the key phrase "Can you find them all?" well, that was a little clue to the connected fics. Now that it's the end of the month, it's time to point them out.
> 
> **Written Tie-Ins**
> 
> Tamuril2: [What Fools These Mortals Be](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16235144)
>     Leon probably should've guessed at his true nature.
>      **Warning:** Nonconsensual Body Modification
> Triss_Hawkeye: [The Devil You Don't](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16279829)
>     Elias and Marconi struggle against the inevitable.
>      **Warning:** Major Character Death
> tenaya: [Ignition Point](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16280726/chapters/38074037)
>     A look inside the Foundation -- and Carter's connection to some of the prisoners.
>     Crossover. Warning: Some harsher language and depiction of violence (including death)
> Lisagarland: [If only](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16330283)
>     The fight between Harold and Nathan over whether or not to help the vulnerable -- and the repercussions for Nathan.
> Fringuello: [The Heart is Not a Stone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16347008)
>     While Shaw protects Gen, she explains why she doesn't have emotions anymore.
> PreachingToTheQuire: [I do not care for Darkness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16367801)
>     Agent Bouchard tracks down a thief whose targets aren't physical objects.
> Stingalingaling: [Gestures](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16425350)
>     When Nathan first wakes up in his rag-doll body, he has a few choice words for Harold. Or, well, at least _one_.
>      Note: An AU to mine; the timeframes simply don't match up. Still adorable, though.
> Bliphany: [Day of Memories.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16488563)
>     Jessica can't break free of what should have been her happiest day.
>     (One of the creepier pieces to come out of this project.)
> Tipsylex: [Crimson Silk](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17771768/chapters/41934293)
>     A heavily wounded Elias runs off, pursued by cultists -- what happens after the team forgets that he exists?
>      **Warning:** Mind control, painful transformation; explicit DubCon sexual content (in one specific chapter, skippable). If you're a sensitive reader, pay attention to the tags.
> HeartsOfStone: TBA
>     Upcoming: What happened to Fusco (the poor guy).
> 
> In addition, we've got audio tie-ins from DesireeArmfeldt. [Leaving the Birdhouse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16050761) is an audio flashback for my fic (I wrote the script), and there's another that should post on Halloween here, which is set after Part 4. Maybe don't listen to it until I've posted Part 4 and you've read Part 4, or there will be a certain amount of spoilers.
> 
> Again, many thanks to merionees for the cover art, and to Lisagarland for illustrating some of the scenes (more might be coming out, but I'm not sure when).
> 
> And for those who, for various reasons, had to bow out of the project: Thank you for giving it a try. I very much appreciate the effort, even if it didn't work out.
> 
> Now… let's see how much of this fic is left, come November!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing much happens here.
> 
> Probably.

[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/66453d4c603439b5f75ff88648e6c560/tumblr_pfu6xvlndd1ubfwgeo4_r2_540.jpg)

The headache was, thankfully, subsiding; Harold paused in his typing and rubbed at his temples. A moment ago, he’d felt so _rushed_ , almost panicked, but… honestly, there wasn’t much left to do today; he’d just let himself get overwhelmed. One more side effect of having to survive in a city so thoroughly under the thumb of the Foundation.

Around him, the subway station was dark and calm, a place of refuge despite its proximity to a Foundation hot-spot. Even the soft clatter of Nathan climbing the shelves and knocking over books was more of a comfort than a disturbance; the man was always researching _something_ these days.

But, really, what else was he going to do with his time? As a human, Nathan had enjoyed two vices -- alcohol and women -- but now, he didn’t have the equipment for either. He couldn’t get high (he’d tried), and couldn’t even leave their hideout except in Harold’s laptop bag. If he’d still had muscles, Harold would’ve set him up a little gym or something, but exercise wouldn’t even give him a dopamine rush, and it wasn’t going to do anything useful to cotton stuffing.

Operating a laptop was slow enough that Nathan had given up on trying to code; he could barely use a mouse, and being reduced to hunt-and-peck (while trying not to step on the spacebar) was almost insulting. Harold had picked him up a Kindle, too, but Nathan found the stylus awkward and frustrating -- and his felted mitten-hands were useless with any kind of touchscreen.

(Come to think of it… Harold set up a quick reminder to buy Nathan a compact USB keyboard. Maybe a split keyboard. Something small enough to balance on his lap.)

One afternoon, Shaw had done her best to find some sort of game that he could play, but the active ones were out of reach: He could no more operate a controller than use mouse and keyboard at the same time, and the Kinect refused to recognize him. He didn’t care for the more cerebral fare. In the end, he’d accepted passive entertainment: Netflix, YouTube, and his newest obsession, nik.bot.

The rest of the time, he got to know Harold’s reference collection -- or as much of it as was left after they’d had to flee the Library. The majority of their resources were digital, of course, but, when it came to anomalous phenomena, it was hardly surprising that the useful texts weren’t published through traditional channels.

As Harold got back to work, he wondered what Nathan was looking into tonight. Aside from the ever-present need to stay a step ahead of the Foundation, there weren’t any long-term research projects on their plate right now… not any that he could think of. Of course, he was pretty tired; Nathan might be immune to sleep deprivation, but Harold wasn’t so lucky, and trying to balance the cases with his current alias was leaving him a little short on resources. Already he was looking forward to heading home, back to Professor Whistler’s apartment, to clear his head with a good night’s rest.

Of course, that was after he’d closed down his workstation for the night. With a sigh, he started to sort through his open tabs, carefully bookmarking the useful ones for later. Most of the tabs weren’t relevant anymore, now that the day’s investigations had come to a close. In fact… huh. A lot of the sites didn’t even seem relevant for the case in the first place. Some construction company… a worksite in Queens… the Metropolitan Hospital? None of this seemed related to the wedding they’d just gotten back from, and he couldn’t recall any reason to be looking up a hospital, not at this time of night.

Maybe he’d been looking up something else and been interrupted by the case? Hmm.

Shaking his head, he went through the tabs a little faster, barely paying attention to the contents as one tab after another went down. _click. click. click._ If any of them turned out to be important, they’d still be in his history until he cleared his cache in a day or so.

_tick_   
_tick_   
_tickticktick_

The alert startled him; he glanced at his phone, knowing full well that it read 36/41.

So much for going home early. Harold paused to stretch, and then settled back into the chair, closing down more pointless tabs. Honestly, he should have thought… but then, they’d all had a lot to think about, what with the Foundation’s grip on the city drawing ever tighter. It wasn’t surprising that it had slipped his mind; too bad John had gone home for the night.

Half the tabs were down when sudden footsteps on the stairs startled him from his reverie.

“Hey, Fin-- _oof_ ” John said as he went sprawling at the foot of the stairs. Huh. Usually he was more graceful than that.

“Mr. Reese,” Harold said disapprovingly, turning back to his monitors, “the safety and security of this location depends primarily on the Foundation not realizing that there’s an anomalous location directly beneath one that they’ve already deemed a contained non-threat. The more frequently we make use of the entrance, the more likely we are to call attention to our presence.”

John strolled toward the subway car, rubbing a hand over his face. “Funny, Harold, given that _you’re_ here at midnight. Find a replacement for your cufflinks?”

Harold’s gaze fell to his cuffs; he missed those cufflinks. It was nice to have people ignore you, to watch their eyes slide off like they didn’t even realize you were there. They’d let him move about in plain sight without any fear of being noticed or remembered. But two years ago, before turning himself over in exchange for Grace, he’d left them at the Library, in the hopes that John could continue using them to work the missions -- a very sensible plan that had backfired when The Order had stormed the place, just hours after Harold had been forced to reveal its existence.

Since losing them, he’d felt much more exposed; he had to rely on a variety of other anomalous objects, none with quite the same benefit. Tonight, a scarf that offered a small variety of visual disguises. The effect worked on the mind; it couldn’t spoof camera footage any more than it could fool the sense of touch. Still, it had managed to let him mimic the missing uncle, who was close enough in height and build and wardrobe that no one had seemed to notice the disparity, even when he’d had to endure a few hugs.

The more troubling detail, though, was that if the cultists had laid hands on the cufflinks, if they even realized what they were, what they _did_ … then some agent of The Order was likely using them. Not Greer, he didn’t think, but still… someone who went completely unnoticed, except to those who were taking at least mid-level mnestics -- and they didn’t have a trustworthy supplier, which meant no protection against the cufflinks’ effect.

Still, he wasn’t _entirely_ helpless. “The replacement, Mr. Reese, is caution and prudence. And knowing how to avoid Foundation cameras. Plus,” he admitted, getting back to his task, “the glasses I was wearing make me aware when anyone is looking in my direction or paying any attention to me. Quite handy.”

John snorted. “Get _me_ a pair.”

“I believe they’re one of a kind. Though, of course, if I ever happen across a similar item… I should also point out that they may or may not pick up on people who are using anomalous effects to hide in plain sight.” Not something he could easily test.

“No worse than usual, in that case.”

“I suppose not.” He yawned, and rubbed at his face. “Anyway, I have to clean up the rest of the case… get things ready for tomorrow. I thought you had gone home for the night.”

“I did,” John protested. “But then I… uh…” He chuckled, tossing a tennis ball to ricochet off the far side of the subway car and out the door. The throw knocked down Harold’s neon purple disguise scarf; John went to retrieve it.

“…Yes?” Harold queried.

John picked up the scarf. “What?”

Harold swiveled to look at John. “Did you come down here for a reason?”

Halfway to hanging the scarf up, John paused. “I dunno, guess I forgot something?” he offered with a half-shrug. As he hung up the scarf, he noticed Nathan struggling to move some books; he carefully reached in and pulled them out for him, laying them on the wide shelf. Nathan looked up at him and tapped a hand to his mouth: _thanks_.

Besides the books -- what was left of Harold’s reference collection -- the shelves held a variety of anomalous items. When the Library had been compromised, Harold had lost the majority of his collection, but he’d never been foolish enough to keep everything at one location. Among the remnants were a few forms of protection, along with different ways to spy or to get into places he didn’t belong. One piece worked like a supernatural energy drink, pushing back exhaustion, clearing your head and sharpening your memory as though you’d had a good night’s sleep -- although once the kick wore off, it left you with about ten hours of nearly crippling déjà vu.

Most, though, were ways to hide: various disguises, glamors and other illusions, even some temporary transformations (the permanent ones were generally too dangerous to use on a person -- not that that stopped the Foundation from testing them out on Theta-class prisoners -- and they hadn’t yet found anything that would let Nathan regain his human form).

“What was it that you forgot?”

Startled, John glanced over at Harold. “Huh. You know, it’s totally slipped my mind. Guess it can’t have been that important.” He sauntered over, surveying the all-but-incomprehensible code scrolling by in one window, and the various surveillance footage playing in several others. “Don’t tell me the Book has a new case for us already.”

Shaking his head, Harold turned back to the workstation. “I would have called you.”

“This late?”

“I don’t usually check the Book at night, Mr. Reese.” He glanced at his phone, noted the time. “But yes, if a case had come up, I would have called you this late, unless the anomaly seemed trivial to deal with.”

“Harold…”

“You’re running yourself ragged, John. I’m not going to call you in over trivialities. Going without sleep is going to get you _shot_. More than usual,” he quickly amended.

“Been doing all right _so_ far,” John protested, mildly.

“Yes, well, I’ll feel much happier when the precinct finally sets you up with a partner. I’m surprised that the captain has let you go it alone so long.”

John huffed. “Didn’t realize you were so concerned about me, Finch,” he said, and tossed the ball out through the other door.

“I’m concerned about _all_ of us. Equally. The Book’s predictions may keep us from stumbling headlong into anomalous phenomena, but I still haven’t found a way, anomalous _or_ technological, to keep us fully aware of the Foundation’s movements. And unlike me, Mr. Reese, you’re frequently going up against armed criminals without any backup. Of course your safety concerns me. Deeply.”

John leaned on the back of Harold’s chair, careful not to put too much weight on it. “That why you’re watching the precinct when I’m not even there?”

Harold blinked at the screen: several views of the precinct, inside and out. “I was just keeping an eye on…” He stopped short. “I guess I forgot to close down the feeds; I’ve been rather busy.” He closed them now; the only views remaining were some streets in Queens, a random construction site, the hospital, and the cameras around the entrance to their subway hideout.

“You know, Finch,” John said slowly, thoughtful, “we got into this knowing that we wouldn’t have a lot of support from local law enforcement. It was surprising enough to get Carter on our side.”

The bittersweet memory of their friend brought a smile to Harold’s face. _It’s not the same without her_ , he didn’t say, because that truth wasn’t restricted to Carter; they each had loved ones they’d left behind, and it did little good to dwell on the loss, except as motivation to keep moving, to keep helping others. “She was a valuable ally, and a dear friend.”

“With all the corruption that spread through the department, she somehow managed to stay pure. True to her values despite all the pressure to give in. Willing to stand up to even the Foundation, when it overstepped its bounds.”

“And clever enough to set the Foundation and The Order against each other -- clever enough to manage it without getting caught. She truly was a marvel. Who else could have pieced together the source of our information the way she did?”

“That’s another thing,” John said. “We could _trust_ Carter. Let her in on a few of our secrets. She had integrity, but she could also think outside the box, see that our mission was doing good and mostly leave it alone. Sometimes even help us break the law. That’s the only reason we were able to bring her into the Library after that--”

“Yes, the case with those Theta-class fugitives.”

“So do you really think we’d luck out and find a second cop we could trust with our secrets?”

Harold sighed. “Mr. Reese… we don’t need to share our deepest secrets with someone just to get you a partner on the force.”

“With all the crazy stuff I get up to? The way I need to rush off at a moment’s notice to save a life without being able to explain how I knew they were going to be in danger? Anyone smart enough to help us would figure out that _something_ ’s up. No, it’s better that I stick it out alone, like always. Besides, Finch, I’ve got you to watch my back.”

Frowning, Harold turned to look at John. “Not as thoroughly as I used to,” he countered, as if it were some personal failing. “I’ve got my own balancing act to manage.”

John rooted through one of the drawer for a moment before putting the ball away. “Yeah, aren’t you a little late to get to bed yourself, Professor? Nine AM classes.”

“Oh, I’m just… finishing up for the night. Not much left to do, really. I suppose it’s good that you’re here, actually; should take just a few minutes.” He rubbed his forehead. “In the meantime,” he said, getting back to his work, “maybe you could figure out if Nathan needs any help over there.”

The sound of rummaging had stopped; John headed over to the far side of the car. Nathan was standing on the second shelf down, holding up a book that was actually taller than his soft muslin body -- even counting the unruly tuft of bright yellow yarn up top. 

Picking up the book, John looked it over. “What’s this?” he asked, pointlessly, since he wasn’t going to get more info from Nathan’s rudimentary sign language than he could from reading the title. " _Anomalous Entities in Urban Areas (Non-Mammalian)_. Been looking up urban monsters tonight?”

“Anomalous entities aren’t merely--” Harold cut himself off; they’d had this discussion before, and that was John yanking his chain again. “Ah, no. I don’t recall anything related to urban creatures, anomalous or otherwise. Maybe he’s researching something more long-term?”

Shaking his head, Nathan tapped his wrist -- _time_ \-- and then extended both hands, palm up, folded the mitten part over, and dropped them a couple times. _Now_.

“Researching something for right now? I thought the Book didn’t have another case for us just yet.”

“It doesn’t,” Harold confirmed. “At least, last I checked.”

Setting the book down, Nathan tapped on John’s arm, then motioned for a lift. John set him on his shoulder and, at his direction, brought him over to Harold’s desk, where the Book lay. Nathan slid down his arm, quickly hobbled over to the Book, and, with some difficulty, pulled open the heavy cover. He flipped through a few pages and gestured at the image.

John glanced at it, but it didn’t seem like anything useful. Weird monsters, nothing new… nothing he cared to look at for very long. He started idly flipping through the pages, pulling up an assortment of memories as the images shifted, displaying various cases.

Leon Tao, in one of the many, _many_ times he’d crossed their path. They hadn’t seen him in months; John could only hope that the flighty changeling was keeping himself off the Foundation’s radar.

Zoe Morgan, looking quite vulnerable before they’d found out her true nature. The fact that they’d tried to help her that day had endeared them to her, giving them a powerful ally as their cases got harder to pull off with a two-man team.

The next page showed Jiao Lin, pulling a glowing substance out of a man in a hospital bed. That had turned out to be what some called ‘souls’ -- the jury was still out on how much it overlapped with the common understanding of the term -- and Lin had been borrowing, rather than stealing. Not that it was entirely harmless, but she hadn’t turned out to be a killer. With the help of the detective who’d been chasing her, they’d managed to track down the black-market group that was threatening her daughter, and then whisk mother and daughter both away before the Foundation could get their hands on a person with a gift that powerful.

Genrika was on the next page, partially obscured by a man affixing something to the back of her neck. As they’d found out later, the men who’d been after her had access to anomalous objects, including interrogation devices meant to cause pain when you lied -- thankfully, they’d gotten to her before that scene ever played out.

Then there was Control, along with four others, held paralyzed before a winged statue of Ma’at; the Book hadn’t shown it, but Harold had gotten dragged along with the rest of them. Whatever he’d been expecting at the time, he’d thought that he could handle it, could resist -- for a while -- whatever sort of tortures they subjected him to. Could hold out until John found him. But there, strapped to the platform under the giant stone wings, he’d found himself spilling every detail like a heartfelt confession, like a weight he’d longed to get off his chest and was finally able to set free: the Book, the Library, the Foundation’s mission, his own powers, his team…

It had been the biggest security breach they’d ever had to face, and the reason they’d had to flee the Library and establish a new base of operations, hiding under new aliases as the Foundation and The Order vied for power over the city at large and both sides tried to lay their hands on Finch again. Because until that night, none of them -- not The Order or the Foundation or the little upstart group that The Order had ended that night -- had known exactly what they were dealing with. What Harold could do for them, if they got him under their control. A man who could identify on sight the anomalous properties of any item… Harold was practically the Holy Grail.

The only reason Harold was walking free was that John had managed to get there before Greer could arrange for a domination collar to be brought over. John didn’t doubt for a second that they had one; more than one had gone missing from the Foundation labs back while he was still a field operative. Put that around Harold’s neck, and his powers would be theirs to abuse.

Shaking off the horror of that scenario, John flipped the page.

Shaw, face dispassionate as she tried to save her partner, already beyond help -- a spiral wiggle had bored a hole straight through his brain. Harold and John had tried to find them in time, but their late arrival only convinced Shaw that they’d _meant_ for him to die. Her lack of emotions didn’t prevent her from nursing grudges; it had taken them quite a few meetings for her to get over that initial mistrust.

John flipped yet another page and had to blink back tears at the sight of Jessica, banging her fists against the inside of a TV screen; that had been a case before he’d joined Finch, before he’d even come home. Before he’d escaped, unexpectedly alive, from the mission the Foundation had expected to kill him. He hadn’t even realized, at first, that she’d been trapped inside an anomaly; he’d learned that from Harold, eventually, and at a bad time for Harold to be telling him that there was absolutely nothing that could be done. None of Harold’s tricks could bring her out again.

He’d walked out after that revelation. Briefly, but he’d walked out. Couldn’t handle it, not when he was still reeling from Carter’s death. (He still had to think of it as a death, because the reality was too much for him.)

And there she was, on the next page… being pulled through a mirror as gunshots shattered the glass. Finch had been horrified to see that one, since he knew the consequences of breaking the conductive element mid-transfer. He’d gone off to see to her safety personally -- all the more urgent since it was a case they’d already set her on, so anything that happened to her would have been their fault. Thankfully, that shattered mirror was another vision that had never come to pass.

They wouldn’t have even seen the warning if Shaw hadn’t been idly browsing the Book while waiting for Finch to dig up some info. Sometimes -- rarely -- something they did changed the circumstances enough that it generated a second prediction. It had taken them a while to figure that out. Part of Nathan’s job, now, was to periodically check the Book during cases, just in case; it was the most useful thing he could do other than research.

_tp tp tp tp tp_

Nathan was tapping his foot, standing there on the desk, his crossed arms and crumpled expression conveying impatience better than John himself could pull off.

“What?”

Without lungs, Nathan couldn’t sigh, but the slight collapse of his body conveyed that pretty well, too. He flipped back through a few dozen pages, then pointed firmly at the image.

John rubbed his forehead and closed the Book -- right on Nathan’s outstretched arm, the heavy pages pulling him down, knocking him off his feet. Struggling a bit, Nathan pulled himself free before John could think to open the Book again; he looked up at him, his garish burlap face crinkling into a frown.

“Sorry, Nathan,” John said. “Did I hurt you?”

Nathan tapped his chest with the side of one mitten-hand -- _fine, fine_ \-- which was the sign they’d worked out for “I’m okay.” It wasn’t like little felt mittens were designed with articulation in mind; Nathan had to resort to a small collection of obvious signs and, when he wanted to convey a more complicated message, typing or (even slower) scrawling it out on paper.

“What is it?” John asked.

After a pause, Nathan tapped _fine_ again, then folded his arms and tapped one hand against the other elbow for a moment. Then, as the Book closed, he shook himself, patted his yarn-hair while doing his rag doll best to glare at her, and stalked off to his laptop.

The last of the windows went down, and Harold sighed, glad to have nothing more to handle tonight. For a moment, he sat silent, hands on his thighs; then he pushed his chair back and carefully got to his feet.

For a moment, he turned around, resting one hand gently on the back of the chair, closing his eyes as if to listen for something. John waited, patiently.

“I’m certainly ready to call it a night,” Harold said, one of his rare smiles gracing his face.

For a long moment, though, they stood there, the only sounds being the whirr of the computer fans and the slow, laborious tapping of Nathan’s typing.

Then John grinned, stumbling a little as he headed for the stairs.

Harold glanced over at the desk, where Nathan was busily browsing. “Nathan, will you be coming with me tonight?”

Not even looking up, Nathan waved him off.

“All right. Good luck with… whatever you’re researching. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

John frowned. “Oh, and don’t forget--”

Harold smiled at him. “Thank you, Mr. Reese. I’ll remember.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to [merionees](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merionees/pseuds/merionees) for the cover art! This is the first time I've worked with a cover artist, and I'm absolutely thrilled with the results!
> 
> * * *
> 
> Don't look up nik.bot. Seriously. It will eat up your free time like a black hole of awesomeness. (It's an image scraper that grabs wallpaper-size images off a forum somewhere. All the awesome at your fingertips. Mesmerizing.)
> 
> Spiral "wiggles" are from the _Xanth_ series -- the idea came up during talks with my beta reader ("how does Cole die?") and I decided to just wholesale borrow them, terminology and all, instead of trying to work out an Expy version. (I might reverse that decision later, if I can think of a good replacement.)


	2. Spread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team starts to get a hint of what is really going on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how _mnemonics_ has a silent **m** at the start? That knowledge might come in handy for reading other words related to memory.
> 
>  _Memetic_ , by the by, means _infectious information_ \-- ideas that get passed from mind to mind. Pretty much all of human culture is a meme of some sort or another, from words (kids learn swear words despite the parents' best efforts) to crafts (crochet, food art, musical styles) to myths (the tooth fairy or the rabbit making candy on the moon) to taboos ( _don't break a mirror_ ). They've even been weaponized as advertising jingles ( _gimme a break, gimme a break…_ ).
> 
>  _Antimemetic_ is, rather obviously, the opposite: information that tries not to be spread. Only it gets a little weirder in the world of SCP….

The long day was finally drawing to a close as a rather soggy Harold limped down the steps to the subway. He felt exhausted, as he always did when they’d had no choice but to step aside and watch innocent people get carted away. But invisible mold wasn’t something they could tackle on their own; it required quarantine, and the victims were already as good as dead.

The Foundation would doubtless experiment on them before it terminated what was left of them and carefully disposed of the remains. But as much as Harold hated to contemplate those experiments, they were the only way to find some hope of recovery -- if not for these victims, then possibly for victims to come. Maybe, in time, they’d figure out how to eradicate the threat for good.

And things could have gone much, much worse.

Antimemetic threats could hide in plain sight. Strictly speaking, the mold wasn’t invisible; it simply tricked the brain into ignoring it. Even weak mnestics could counter the effect, but there was a simpler solution: some layer of tech between the mold and your eyes. A camera revealed it easily enough; of course, if you were taking pictures of the area, you’d have already been exposed. And an outbreak in Mount Kisco could have quickly spread to surrounding areas and out across the entire state, with no one the wiser until days later, when entire households began to drop dead -- and the mold moved to a new contagion vector, that of the first responders.

Were it not for the Book alerting Harold to the threat, and the speed with which he’d redirected that information to the Foundation… well. Harold turned his mind to less disturbing thoughts.

 

Besides calling in the Foundation, there hadn’t been much else to do today. A couple of random cases, not particularly difficult -- although his bruised hip still ached from smashing it into a marble countertop while they’d been evading a rather energetic floating barstool. Overall, their situation hadn’t changed much. Shaw was still missing. John’s role on the police force ensured that they had an inside man now that Carter was… gone.

And Harold? Masquerading as a professor, so that he could go about in public and buy supplies like a regular person, flying under the radar of the groups who were after him. Since they’d fled The Order and gone into hiding (well, into a different kind of hiding; Harold had been in hiding since he was seventeen), he’d had to adjust to the loss of the Library’s safety and comfort, along with any number of anomalous items that had made things easier on them. The cornucopia that generated endless amounts of food, just for starters; last year had been the first in decades where he’d actually had to buy groceries.

At least Nathan hadn’t sent him to get more dog treats. Lately, the former CEO’s requests had gotten increasingly bizarre. Just a few days ago, he’d texted them a list of supplies, insisting that it couldn’t wait until morning. So they’d split up: John had stopped at the hardware store while Harold went for the groceries and a bath towel. By the time Harold had made it to the subway, John had already assembled some sort of slingshot, bolted to the corner of the desk.

 _Have you been getting particularly bored?_ Harold had wanted to ask -- but hadn’t, because it wasn’t like Nathan had the most extensive list of entertainment options. It would be churlish to deny him whatever little pleasures he could concoct for himself, even if that meant indulging his bizarrely creative side. Or looking the other way when he wired away some of their limited funds.

Or -- each evening that week -- filling a bowl with dog food, and setting it on the floor. Harold had begun to wonder if Nathan was simply lonely, enough to be hinting that they ought to get him a pet… but he’d been staying in the subway station by choice, for a good week and a half, when he could have gone home with either of them at any time.

Then again, maybe it was at the Book’s behest; there were times when the Book gave inscrutable directions that were best followed, even if you didn’t understand them (Harold had learned that the hard way, long before he’d even met John).

At least Nathan had been pleased with the slingshot design, and immediately put it to use with a tennis ball. He’d pulled back the little sling, straining until it slipped from his mitten-hands and the ball went flying out the door.

“I’m not gonna get it back for you,” John had said, dryly, but Nathan had just waved him off, and indicated through pantomime that Harold could put the towel on the floor beside the steps. The towel was a further mystery: Since becoming a rag doll, Nathan had certainly developed an extreme aversion to getting dirty or wet, but that meant that he didn’t _need_ a towel. And it didn’t explain how the other towel had gotten all muddy.

 

Tonight, Harold and John had dropped by the station at Nathan’s request, without needing to pick up supplies this time. And as soon as they were inside, he indicated the screen: _Take me up to the street. Need to meet someone._

Harold knew that Nathan was nearly as careful with their secrecy as he was -- for obvious reasons -- but it was still a bit alarming to think of him summoning people to their hideout. But when John pressed for more information, Nathan simply typed out _I’ll answer questions when we get back._

At the vending machine entrance, Nathan had them pause for a moment before letting them close the machine. Before they reached street level, he climbed into John’s shirt, poking his head out to offer directions.

Two blocks down, they found a little outdoor dining area, and… Leon Tao. The changeling got to his feet, looking worried even before John glared at him.

“What are you up to this time, Leon?”

“Hey, I resent the implication that I’m always up to something,” Leon protested. “And, for the record, you called _me_.” He pushed a small cardboard box into Harold’s hands. “It wasn’t so easy to get those, either, so you might be a bit more grateful.”

Then he knelt down and started waving his hands through the air. “I’m glad to see you, buddy,” he said with a grin.

“Clearly,” Harold replied, raising an eyebrow.

Leon looked up, studying the two of them, his eyebrows drawn together. “So you two really… you can’t even see?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Right. Uh.” He scrambled to his feet again. “It said not to mention that. Never mind.” 

“You’re being weird, Leon,” John muttered.

“Hey, I’m not the one who asked the world to get weird. I’m just trying to survive, here, and maybe do you guys a favor.”

“Since when do you do favors without getting something in return?”

“Since never?”

Nathan tapped John’s chest, and held out a little piece of folded paper, which John handed to Leon.

“Oh, uh… guess you’re Nathan, then? Looking better, buddy. Um.” He opened the paper, and read it. “Oh, wow. Uh. Thanks! Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him. Hope you guys… um… hope it’s not permanent? Anyway, see you later. Come on, boy!” he finished cheerfully, and headed down the street, leaving the two of them a bit befuddled.

Before they could discuss the odd encounter, Nathan waved to get Harold’s attention, and motioned _go back home now_.

 

Back in the subway, John set Nathan on the desk. Nathan motioned at the box that Harold was still holding -- _open_ \-- and then toddled over to the laptop, plopped down on the desk, and pulled the split keyboard onto his lap. Now that he had a decent way to reach all the keys, his efforts to communicate went much faster. Nothing like normal typing speed, but definitely an improvement.

The box held a small tin, which Harold opened, revealing two odd-shaped turquoise pills.

Mnestics. Startled, Harold glanced over at Nathan, then up at the monitor displaying his chat window.

 _It’s not affecting me yet, but I think that’s bcuz I’m not human anymore_.

“What’s not affecting you?” Harold asked, as his stomach turned to ice from the implication alone. The next words weren’t so much revelation as instant confirmation:

 _Something’s making you forget things_.

Without hesitation, Harold dry-swallowed one of the pills, handing the other to John without taking his eyes off the screen. The low-grade headache was almost instant -- confirmation that the mnestic was trying to counter effects that were too strong for it.

 _I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on. Even the Book doesn’t know_.

“Finch, what did you just give me?”

“A mild mnestic,” Harold replied. “It’s not enough, I’m afraid, but it should keep us focused for a little while.” He’d ask how Nathan arranged for the delivery, but they really didn’t have time to waste. “We’ll have to see if we can get access to more effective variants… assuming we can stay aware of the need long enough to get them.”

Taking out his phone, he -- stared at the spiderwebbed screen; right, he’d dropped it during the altercation with the anomalous barstool. “Mr. Reese, I’ll need your phone,” he said, pulling the Book to the center of the desk and opening it. “What’s going on? How much have I forgotten?” John pressed the phone into his free hand. “How much have _we_ forgotten?”

As he tapped out a message, he saw the Book’s reply scroll out in his peripheral vision. He tucked the phone away to center his attention on the Book.

 _Antimemetic hazard_ , the words inked across the page in fancy letters, line upon line.

 _Serious_  
_Ongoing_  
_Threat to Head Librarian_  
_Threat to Primary Assistant_

 _Origin: Unknown_  
_Confer with Research Assistant_

Harold turned to Nathan. “Make it fast; if we don’t find more mnestics within five hours—”

Without looking back, Nathan tapped his temple: _I know_. Then he started typing again.

 _Antim aversion to thots of forgotten beings. You’ve lost at least 2_.

Harold swallowed.

 _Pointless to try to discuss them. We’re doing what we can to take care of them_.

“So they’re still alive? unhurt?”

 _So far. Don’t think about them; it seems to make the effect bleed out across other info_.

“Dear Lord.” Infectious amnesia.

“Are others affected, or just us?” John asked.

Before Nathan could respond, the Book scrawled out a list of names:

 _Head Librarian_  
_Primary Assistant_

_Sameen Shaw_  
_Constanza Moreno_  
_Dani Silva_

“Wait, hold on.” John leaned in over the Book, fully alert. “That’s confirmation that she’s alive, right? Shaw’s alive?”

 **Status:** _Alive_  
**Location:** _Out of Reach_  
**Priority:**

“Less than our current predicament,” Harold cut in. “Mr. Reese, I appreciate your desire to find Miss Shaw, believe me. But I have consulted the Book on her behalf repeatedly, and all it can tell me is that she lies outside our sphere of influence. For all we know, she could be in another dimension. I’ve directed it to let me know if there is anything we can do to assist her, but, for the moment… we have to focus on attending to _this_ threat.”

“If she’s still out there--”

“I am no less concerned for her safety than you are, Mr. Reese, and I would be delighted to see her safely returned to us. But we haven’t the time for a detour. Shaw might well be the next person we forget. Or perhaps the threat will have taken us out before we’re in a position to help her. Surely you can see--”

“All right,” John ground out. “So who else is affected?”

 _Louis Azarello_  
_Iris Campbell_

 _Timothy Kane_  
_Alonzo Quinn_  
_Philip Womack_  
_Janet Dyer_  
_Lee_

The list kept growing: a lot of cops, and a few random civilians, some of whom John didn’t even recognize. “Damn. How fast is the effect spreading?”

 _Variable_ , the Book said, wiping out the list. _Unpredictable_.

“Who could best help us with this problem?” Harold asked.

The Book stayed silent.

“Now there’s an odd pear,” John said.

“Whatever the hazard is,” Harold observed, “it doesn’t prevent people from working to stop it. Or remedy it. We should head off immediately, to the safe house.”

“Should I leave a sign here? In case we get sidetracked and need reminding?”

“Mr. Reese, if this things stops us before we’ve even gotten new mnestics, it’s likely too late to do anything. That’s probably why the Book didn’t tell us earlier.” He quickly began packing up Nathan’s laptop and phone, keyboard and stylus.

“Fair enough.” John scooped up Nathan and tucked him inside his shirt, then grabbed the Book. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to getting this together a little late, I split the chapter in half (it was getting kinda long anyway). Should post the second half tomorrow.


	3. Memoria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team discusses the problem, their best guess at a solution, and how exactly Harold knows so much about memory-affecting anomalies to begin with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Chapter-Specific Content Warnings in End Note_
> 
> I hope I'm using the terminology correctly, or at least within reasonable parameters. If anyone has a better grasp of SCP-specific words such as _cognitohazard_ and _infohazard_ and such, feel free to start a discussion thread in the comments down there.
> 
> If I'd had more time to work on this (and, well, less writer's block and procrastination), I think I would've run a few things somewhat differently. Most notably, I would've worked out better stipulations for how the Book communicates. But this turned out… not terrible.

John drove, and he evidently understood the need for haste, which made Harold glad to be securely buckled in. He was seated in the back, with the Book open across his lap, and the front seat pushed forward as far as it would go, so that Nathan, tucked into the back of the seat cover, could still communicate. The Book’s answers were always images and lists of data, and simple, often cryptic messages; it wasn’t really able to display anything approaching a normal language.

“How long ago did you notice the effect?”

_9 days_  
_2 hours_

Glancing to the side, Harold considered. “May 23rd. The wedding, right? Was there… anything special that happened that day?”

Nathan pointed at Harold, wiped his forehead, and then circled one hand, pointing up: _You forgot someone_.

“Besides that.”

Nathan shrugged. Harold glanced at the Book, but there was just a slight flux in the color of its pages, a sign that Harold had learned to interpret as a shrug as well.

“And between then and now, we forgot someone else? A friend?”

The page flashed a deep red: _Danger_.

“Right. But if we can’t discuss the people we forgot--”

“Why not?” John asked, glancing at Harold through the rear-view mirror.

Harold blinked. “Haven’t you ever worked with infohazards before?”

“Basic training,” John said. “Learned ways to spot victims and avoid becoming the _next_ victim.”

“Then you know the basics. I take it you never went high in the ranks?”

John shook his head. “They make everyone take aptitude tests, but I never qualified for the nonphysical hazard stuff.”

“Well. The fact of the matter is, some of the most dangerous anomalies in existence are just… ideas. Information. I’m not saying that in a symbolic way, like ‘there’s nothing more dangerous than a man with an idea’; the knowledge _itself_ can be lethal -- or _worse_. There are some areas of investigation that have been documented as simply ‘this road of inquiry is too dangerous to pursue.’”

“Because of all the bodies?”

“Something like that.” Harold hesitated. “I assume you’re familiar with memetic hazards? Infectious information?”

“Of course.”

“The opposite effect is an _antimemetic agent_ : self-censoring data. Info that doesn’t want to be known. Objects and entities that can’t be seen, felt, perceived… effects that strip the data from your mind as soon as you turn away, or sometimes before it can even reach your brain.

“An entity with antimemetic shields is even worse than an invisible creature, because it can force your brain to not pay attention to it. With an invisible creature, you might spot its footprints or see an object that it’s carrying around, but antimemetic effects will make your mind slide right off, ignore the obvious. It’s like it shuts down your ability to make logical inferences about anything that has to do with it.”

“Which is what happened to us?”

“Antimemetic hazard -- that’s what the Book said.”

“So whatever it is could be right here in the car with us, and we wouldn’t even realize it?”

“Exactly. The fact that we can even discuss the effect is due to the mnestics, and that’s only going to last for a few hours.”

“And this thing, whatever it is, has made us forget people?”

“The memories may be gone -- destroyed, eaten, transferred… unrecoverable. Worst case. Best case, they’re suppressed: Still there, but unable to be accessed until the antimemetic effect has been dealt with.”

“So if we get a strong enough pill, it’ll stop the ongoing effect and restore whatever memories haven’t been destroyed.”

“Not all mnestics are pills, but… yes. Essentially. We’d be able to see what’s being hidden from us, and access those memories that are being suppressed. At least until the mnestic wears off.”

“So what was the point of the headache pill?”

Harold chuckled at the description, though without much energy. “A low-tier mnestic counters the mildest antimemetic effects, and basically keeps us from getting sidetracked from our mission. Which is what some of these threats do: Get us so focused on something else that we forget the need to take basic countermeasures until it’s too late. If we can’t find a supplier, we might end up back where we started, oblivious to the active threat.”

“How do you know so much about this, anyway? I worked for the Foundation for twelve years -- five of them at Sigma level -- and most of this is news to me.”

“I’ve… had sufficient reason to delve into the subject. More than most.”

“Oh?”

For a long moment, the car was silent. As the silence stretched on, John wanted to glance back at Harold, but the traffic was too tight for him to dare.

When John fished for information about Harold’s past, he rarely got it; Harold found ways to skirt around the question, or just moved the conversation in another direction. The exchanges had become almost a dance between them, so the silence -- revealing how touchy a subject he’d broached -- was unexpected.

But it was almost more surprising when Harold finally spoke. “There’s a little town in Iowa,” he murmured, haltingly, almost painfully, “where approximately one fifth of the population has… forgotten me. More than simply forgotten: They’re incapable of perceiving me. Like I’m an utterly foreign concept, and their minds just can’t deal with the reality that is Harold Tu-- that is _me_. I’ve been ripped from their brains so thoroughly that they can’t even read the messages I write.

“And I spent decades trying to figure out if it’s possible to undo that effect. For all I know, it’s permanent.

“You see, Mr. Reese, an antimemetic agent is more than mere amnesia: It actively prevents your mind from realizing the loss. Trying to challenge that memory loss, to re-teach the suppressed concept… like Nathan said, it can cause even greater damage, because the effect can bleed out and infect related memories.”

“So our first step has to be to counter the effect.”

“Precisely. Hence, the mnestics, so we can figure out what’s affecting us and _how_ to counter it.”

The ride was silent for a while, as John mulled over the information. “So what exactly happened?” he asked, after a while. “To make them forget you?”

Again, Harold’s silence was telling. Eventually, he took in a breath, and said, “The first time I ever encountered an anomaly, I was seventeen.”

John glanced at him in the mirror; Harold had his eyes closed, as if in pain.

“It’s the event that started the rest of my life. Sent me on the run. Gave me these powers. But at the time… it was just a weird thing that I found in the woods. Something like the stump of a huge tree, burned by lightning, with a giant crack running down one side. Inside, there was something… shining… so I… I followed my curiosity.

“That place… stretches out in odd ways. My first encounter with extradimensional space. It was, in the strictest sense of the word, fascinating. The things I found… I haven’t the vocabulary to _begin_ to describe them to you. I doubt I could even picture it as I’m doing now without the mnestics helping me get a grip on the memory.”

“So what made the town forget you, anyway? Just going through that place?”

The pain on Harold’s face got a little sharper. “Ah… no. It was the… the entity that I found in there.” His voice had gone slow and halting, as if trying to recall a dream. “There was this… not exactly a room, but… and when I entered it, I must have triggered something, because the whole place lit up. Not with light. With… awareness. Everything around me, every minute detail, in all directions, was visible whether I was looking at it or not; I was aware of it all.

“And the… _being_ that was there… not a creature; it’s not physical. It wanted me to… to teach it things. To let it into my mind, so it could understand the creature who had come to visit it. And I” -- he swallowed heavily, gazing out the window -- “with no real conception of what I was doing or what it meant, I… I let it have a full understanding of _me_.”

Harold took a deep, shuddering breath before he could press on.

“It took me years to piece together what it had really done; even now, I’m not sure that I fully understand. But it appears to have reached out across some thread that connects memories -- not just within _my_ head, but the connected memories of every person who had ever come into contact with me for more than the most superficial interaction. It took those memories for itself, so that it could better understand me. And then it… it gave me a gift, in return. The ability to intuitively understand mechanical and anomalous objects, just by looking at them.”

“The power that makes you the most wanted man in the world.”

“Indeed.”

“It didn’t actually mean to make people forget you, then.”

“I believe that the… entity… is used to trading concepts the way that we trade objects and services. And it enjoys the sensation of newness, of surprise, so the loss of memories is a perk; the suppression effect, and inability to relearn the memory, seems to affect only humans.”

“So when you left that place…”

“I’ve been forgotten,” Harold said tightly. “Entirely. By everyone who had ever known me. My friends, my teachers, our neighbors… they couldn’t see me. My father lived the rest of his life believing that he’d never had a son.”

John glanced his way, but Harold was rigidly staring out the window, chin trembling ever so slightly. Not knowing what to say, he just kept driving, and gave Harold room to talk.

“I had to run,” Harold said, eventually. “Because the Foundation hunts people like me… people with powers. And because I knew things about their operations. That’s why I was thrilled to find the Library, which kept me safe, and the Book, which was able to point me at the kind of anomalous objects that could make it easier to stay hidden. And, of course, the rest of the Library’s collection, which let me research almost any topic I needed info on… including anomalies that affected memory.

“I’m surprised they found you that quickly; the Foundation wasn’t quite so efficient when _I_ worked for them.”

“Oh, they didn’t pick up my scent for _decades_. I was lucky. Luckier than most.”

Puzzled, John frowned. “Then… how did you know to run from them?”

Harold met John’s eyes in the mirror and smiled dismally. “It’s almost funny. The Foundation apparently found this… anomalous object… and they stuck it right in the center of one of their biggest labs. Never realized it was a sort of camera… only it’s more than that. You step inside the -- the viewing chamber, I suppose -- and it’s like you’re standing wherever that spy unit is. And, again, your awareness of the world around you is far more than just visual… and it isn’t stopped by walls. It’s… overwhelming, until you learn to focus in on specific details.

“From that unit, I could see almost the entire lab, every detail. I could read their documentation, hear them talk about their mission. What their true objectives are, and how far they’re willing to go to achieve them. Such callous disregard for the welfare of living, sentient, sapient creatures.

“I could hear the screams… and worse. I was fully aware of every sensory detail, of every inhuman procedure they were performing on the creatures they’ve captured, on the _people_ …”

“ _God_ , Finch,” John breathed. When he’d been inducted into the Foundation, they’d carefully coached him for _weeks_ , acclimating him to the cruelty in stages, debriefing him on its ‘necessity’ until it all seemed normal and unavoidable. And he’d been a soldier in his late twenties, there by choice, not a teenager suddenly thrust into a world he should never have encountered in the first place.

“A lifetime of horror in moments, before I could wrench myself free. I’m honestly shocked that it didn’t have some obvious effect on my sanity.”

“From what you’ve told me before, you probably had PTSD for a while.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it. And, from that day to this, there hasn’t been a single waking moment where I haven’t been aware of the Foundation. It’s like knowing that there’s a snake in the room.

“But there, at _that_ moment, I knew only that I had to flee. Had to get loose and run back to what was home, what was familiar. I wanted nothing more than to crawl back into my bed and hide under the covers until I could convince myself that it had been nothing more than a very bad dream.”

Harold’s breaths were coming faster now, caught up in that memory.

“I… made it back to town. My head was whirling, and… you know how you’ve been trained to be aware of every weapon in the room? Imagine if they were all lit up like neon signs, only, instead of weapons, it’s every machine that’s under a certain level of complexity. Every light switch, every doorknob… it took me _ages_ to learn to control my mind enough to push some of that out of my conscious awareness.

“Anyway, I… I dropped by the local diner. Just for a drink, a chance to clear my head. I sat at the bar, and the waitresses there… at first I thought they were just busy, because they both ignored me. Wendy and Luanne. Usually they had a smile for me, a wave, even if they couldn’t get to me right away, but… I must have waited twenty minutes before I started trying to get their attention, and it was like I wasn’t even there.

“When I finally…” He swallowed. “I, ah, I’m afraid I shouted at one of them. She didn’t even startle.

“That’s when I realized that something very bad had happened, but I didn’t yet know just what it was. I showed up in the mirror behind the counter, so I wasn’t invisible. Various people noticed me as I hurried home. But the pattern was getting obvious: The people who noticed me were strangers. The ones who ignored me were… everyone else.

“And when I finally got home…” He drew in a shuddering breath, and then another.

Nathan pulled himself out of the seat cover elastic and tumbled down onto Harold’s lap, wrapping both arms around his wrist: a tiny hug. Harold sighed and smiled down at his friend.

“I spent that evening,” he continued, softer, “watching a dad who couldn’t see me. I went to bed hoping that the effect might be gone when I woke up; when I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of running through town, being chased by rotting trees, with all of my friends ignoring me as I screamed for help.

“The whole next day, I shadowed my dad, hoping against hope that the effect might be… temporary, might be…” He shook his head. “A family friend dropped by to help him fix the tractor. Walked right by me without even noticing. I sat by the garage door and… listened to them chat while they worked. Listened to them talk about a life where I’d never existed.

“That evening, I sat at the table and just watched my dad eat. I didn’t have the appetite to join him. Spent time memorizing his face. Then he got ready for bed, and I… I just left. I had no allies, no resources… just the college fund that my dad had been saving up for me since before I was ten. It was enough to keep me afloat until I managed to create a new identity for myself.

“So that’s why I’ve studied the kind of anomalies that can affect memory and awareness. That’s how I got roped into this world: A curious mind just a little too open to the unknown.”

“Explains why you’re so paranoid,” John murmured, gently.

“You never knew me at the height of my paranoia,” Harold countered. He cupped Nathan’s cheek with one hand; Nathan pressed into it, wrapping his arm around it as well and nuzzling in. “It’s a miracle that Nathan was able to bring me out of that shell… first with his patience, and later with his trust, and then…” His voice grew choked. “With his sacrifice. Before Nathan… you really have no idea.”

 

When they reached the safe house, John stopped to secure the door while Harold limped down the stairs and handed over the Book.

He took a tiny, coral-colored tablet and a small cup of water. Knowing from experience the kind of headache he was about to have, Harold huffed and swallowed the mnestic, then turned. “What threat level are we dealing with?” From his peripheral vision, he saw John moving to join him. “With good reason,” he added, with a look of distaste.

John set Nathan gently on the little table and accepted his own mnestic. “I might be able to infiltrate my old workplace, but it’d be tough.”

“Tier Fives are the byproduct of Anomalous Location Zeta-Iota-90,” Harold countered, “which requires the sacrifice of Theta-class prisoners. They don’t even get the luxury of dying.”

“If the threat is grave enough--” John began.

“-- _and_ the pills have long-term effects on personality and sanity. The Foundation uses them because they can stand to lose operatives; we can’t.”

“Then we stick to Fours,” John said. “At least we can stave off the memory effect--”

“If the memories are merely suppressed, it’ll help, but if they’re being moved or destroyed, all Fours can do is keep us aware of the effect itself and focused on our mission. If we don’t have an end game, we’re just treading water until we drown.”

“What, then?”

Harold took a deep breath. “We get the Fours first, for both of you.”

For a while, they stood there, Harold wanting to protest. Then he took a deep breath, and nodded. “All right. And then… once we’ve all got Fours in our system… I know where a Tier Seven is.”

It was John’s turn to frown. “Tier Sixes are lethal, and you want to try an even higher grade?”

“Used correctly, it has no long-term side effects. It’s definitely safer than a Tier Six, unless I hold onto it for too long.”

“Hold-- it’s not a pill?”

“Not all mnestics are medicinal; I told you that. This one happens to be an artifact.” He ducked his head. “It can only be used by one person at a time. It’s incredibly disorienting _and_ painful. It provides _too much_ information -- you all know my aversion to over-precise knowledge, and not without good reason. But none of that matters right now. The chief difficulty would be… it’s part of the Library.”

The Library they’d fled two years ago, when The Order had moved in. John closed his eyes, trying to imagine any path that didn’t involve unconscionable risk.

“We don’t have much choice,” Harold asserted. “Unfortunately, it’s not portable. I’ll have to actually be inside the Library itself.”

“No,” John growled, instantly. “No way in hell.”

“What’s the alternative, Mr. Reese? This isn’t something you can shoot, or negotiate with. We don’t even know what we’re dealing with. Even if the Book tried to tell us more about it, we wouldn’t be able to perceive the information. It’s probably been trying to tell us for-- Nathan, how long ago did you figure out that we were ignoring the threat?”

With both hands, Nathan signed _a week and a half_.

“So the most it can tell us is that it’s too powerful for what we have now. And if we don’t stop it, who knows how far it’ll go? There are whole towns that have forgotten how to process grain, or how to tell time, or the entire concept of first aid. We’ve forgotten a couple of people, but what if this is just the first wave? What if it bleeds out across the city?”

“If it’s that great a threat, shouldn’t this be a Foundation matter?”

Harold looked at the Book. “You showed a list of people already affected by this thing. Is it specifically related to us -- to our group -- or are we just part of a larger effect?”

The Book floated there, silent.

“But you know which people have been affected.”

It continued to float there, silent.

“A few dozen people is more than enough to justify getting the Foundation involved.”

Turning to regard John, Harold frowned. “And what exactly would we tell them? ‘Some people have been forgotten, but we don’t know who’?”

“I’ll turn myself in. They can stick their probes in _my_ head.”

“Antimemetic effects aren’t that easy to track down. Besides, even the best case has them haul in a few dozen innocent people whose only ‘crime’ is forgetting someone they once knew. And even if you were willing to go that far -- which I’m _not_ \-- we don’t even know which people have been forgotten. We only know that, in some capacity, they used to be part of this group, known to all of us. If the Foundation manages to counter the effect, we may have just pointed them at friends and allies -- painted a target right on their backs.”

John’s face was a mask of contained fury, with a hint of panic. “Think about what you’re asking, Finch. You want me to just walk you in there… hand you over to the tender mercies of The Order?”

“I realize it’s risky, Mr. Reese, but with the Book along to tell us the best path, I believe we can manage to get in, make our way to the chamber of the Allseer, get the information we need, and get out again. Ideally, we’d cause some sort of distraction as well, ensuring that the bulk of the cultists are off site.”

A moment later, Harold glanced at the Book. Fondly, he shook his head.

John let out a breath, surrendering to the idea; there was clearly no reasonable alternative. He felt outclassed by the threat, unarmed in a battle that took the type of weapons he wasn’t trained in. But he would do whatever was in his power to protect Harold. “If that’s how it has to be,” he said, “then you’re sticking to me like glue, Finch. No sneaking off on your own.”

With an amused huff, Harold nodded. “That’s settled, then.”

The Book floated down to the table.

“Oh, of course,” Harold said, then hesitated. John turned his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, let's see. The big one -- a theme throughout this piece -- is existential dread, specifically memory erasure. Here, it's on the level of a terrible nightmare, only Harold didn't have the luxury of having it wear off by morning.
> 
> Mental manipulation to give Harold powers he didn't ask for and that later prove to be quite distressing (sensory overload). Mild panic attack.
> 
> Mention of inhuman experiments / torture, but no details given, aside from the effect it had on the person who witnessed them firsthand (a lot of horrible all at once).
> 
> Mention of a control collar implied to be mind control; again, no details. This is an intense chapter describing some horrible things that had huge effects on the characters, but they're all flashbacks (Harold's past) and planning for future danger, as well as the overall awareness that at any moment, another character could be completely erased from their minds.


	4. Supplies & Equipment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team secures the mnestics they need -- next chapter, they approach their old stomping grounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay (again)! And I split this chapter in two, as well. Hoping to get the next up within a day, maybe two; we'll see.
> 
> Any of you figure out what's really going on yet? Because there's a meta effect at play ^_^

“If we’re gonna do this, we need to get a move on,” John said, checking his SIG before tucking it away again.

Harold straightened up and nodded. “Yes, of course. Do you need to grab anything before we go?”

Not looking at them, Nathan rubbed his little chest with one fist -- _I’m sorry_. The burlap of his face was crumpled up, a troubled expression, as he waved his hands near his temples, palms out, negating the motion with a shake of his head ( _don’t worry_ ).

Picking the Book up off the table, Harold frowned down at his friend. Eye contact was a big part of sign language, even if Nathan’s eyes were merely big black buttons, but Nathan was signing without looking at anyone. He even offered a directional sign pointed at no one in particular: one fist cupped in the other hand, thumb up ( _help you_ ).

“Come on, Gram, we gotta go,” John said in his no-nonsense tone, and scooped the doll up to his shoulder with one quick motion. On the way up, Nathan tapped his wrists together ( _be careful_ ), but then he had to hang on as John headed for the door.

Odd. Well, at least he echoed John’s sentiment: He would never let Harold walk into danger without doing his utmost to help him. And Harold, in turn, would certainly be as careful as he could, given the circumstances.

* * *

The supplier turned out to be holed up in an abandoned school, somewhat incongruously named _Hope Elementary_. At the end of the hallway was a seemingly innocuous door with a fading sign: _Custodian’s Closet_. Harold easily noticed the traps that would trigger if they tried to open it or break it down.

“School’s closed,” came a voice from the other side. “No trespassing!”

Then a series of locks began clacking open on the other side.

The door opened. But when John stepped cautiously into the room, glancing around for threats, he suddenly stiffened up and went statue-still, staring straight ahead.

Alarmed, Harold stepped around him; his powers flashed a warning before he could lay eyes on the threat, even within his peripheral vision. But the warning also indicated that the sight hazard wouldn’t be triggered by _him_.

As Harold studied the poster that had caught John’s gaze, Raul scoffed.

“It’s not directly harmful or permanent,” Harold mused aloud. The poster hung from the ceiling, positioned to be the first thing you saw upon entry, if you looked straight ahead: a large black pattern across tan paper, circular and maze-like. The Foundation symbols in the corners meant nothing to him, and he doubted that he’d have even noticed them were it not for the mnestics coursing through his system.

John, of course, had been trained to respond to Foundation cues in certain almost instinctive ways. Which seemed to be how the design operated, triggering a compulsion to contemplate the patterns, so thoroughly that the effect couldn’t be stopped even by breaking line of sight.

“This pattern traps Foundation agents?” he confirmed.

“You bring Foundation agents into my place of business, I defend myself,” Raul said. “They’re known to not look kindly on the peddlers of anomalous merchandise.”

Harold turned to regard him. “But he hasn’t been one of their agents in nearly five years.”

“You don’t retire from the Foundation,” Raul countered. “And you’d be a fool to think he has. Their sting operations get craftier,” he added, unrepentantly.

A moment later, Raul had gone utterly still, terror-stricken. Harold simply continued to study the poster.

Softly, as if he hesitated to even breathe, Raul said, “We are surrounded by sensitive anoms. If you… disturb them--” He swallowed.

“The pattern needs to change,” Harold said. “It’s like a mental program; John’s been told to study the pattern, and needs to be given different orders. It’ll wear off in a few hours, but--”

“All right,” Raul said dully. “Just flip the poster over.”

Harold double-checked the new pattern, verifying that it wasn’t harmful, before he set it up so John could see it. A second later, John was blinking, and looking around with the efficiency of an agent well trained in recovering from disorientation. Harold sighed with relief.

Resignedly, Raul retrieved two bottles of something like eye drops, milky blue. With John keeping an eye on their host, Harold sat down and carefully leaned back to get the drops in. They needed to make sure that no one got an overdose -- one drop per eye, not more.

The liquid felt icy, but not unpleasantly so. As he blinked them in and glanced about the room, he noted a few doors that he hadn’t seen before -- or, more precisely, hadn’t paid attention to. Antimemetic shields for Raul’s more important stock.

Raul was glowering from his chair. “They’re addictive, you know,” he said, after they all had their doses in. “When you finally need to go off them, it’s not… gonna… be… fun.” There was a dark amusement to his almost sing-song warning.

Looking down at the bottle, Harold frowned. “I knew that before taking them… but it’s not as though we have a choice.”

Raul blinked at him, then narrowed his eyes incredulously. “You’ve had these before? And you’re still willing to take them?”

“We’re all used to dealing with pain,” Harold said with a frown. “And the immediate threat is far more pressing than the side effects; we’ll deal with them when they come.”

He’d known the list of side effects for multiple types of Tier Fours, but now, looking at the milky blue liquid, he knew these particular side effects at a far more immediate level -- no longer mere book-learning.

“What side effects are we talking?” John asked Raul.

“Oh, blindness… nausea… palsy…”

Harold huffed with mild amusement. “Hardly. This substance allows you to see what you would normally ignore; when that goes away, the withdrawal symptoms kick in. You’ll see things that aren’t actually there, have that pins-and-needles sensation across your shoulders, and have to deal with face-blindness for a few weeks. Won’t be able to recognize even your closest friends, not by facial features. If you try to push back the withdrawal effects by taking additional doses, it just gets worse.”

“Oh?”

“Taking a second dose before the first one’s about to wear off makes you functionally illiterate with any form of written language, though that’s thankfully not permanent. Once you hit the fifth consecutive dose, your brain starts going a little weird… humans won’t look like humans anymore, and many normal objects will look alien. You know how if you look at enough iterations of the same word, the word stops looking like a normal word anymore? It’s like that.

“By the eighth dose, your brain has been irrevocably changed, and you’ll fear the sight of eyes -- any type of eyes, even cartoon eyes or everyday objects that _appear_ to be eyes. Like shoelace holes. And the face blindness becomes permanent.”

“Nasty stuff,” John mused, as he kept an eye on Raul; Harold was busy setting reminders on his phone and John’s. “Twenty-nine hours, give or take; it changes a little with weight and hydration.” Then he made a moue and put a note on the inside of his cuff as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five of the adjoining projects have gone up (four written, one in a non-text format). _Can you find them all?_


	5. Tactical Discussion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> En route to the Library, the team discusses tactics… and history.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh. The writer's block is no respecter of deadlines.
> 
> But, I finally did get this chapter completed. And you know how I told y'all to stick to pagefics because you wouldn't bite off more than you could chew? I hope I haven't bitten off way more than I can chew. We'll see if I can complete this by Halloween or not :\

“Look down,” Harold said abruptly.

John, still driving, stared resolutely at the street right in front of them.

Shortly, Harold sighed. “We’re clear; avoid the mirrors, Mr. Reese.”

John took a quick right turn, breaking line of sight to whatever was behind them.

“Visual cognitohazard,” Harold explained, “except that most people can’t see it. It’s not alive, not in the traditional sense, or my powers wouldn’t pick up on it, but… it doesn’t like being noticed.” He paused. “Flying above, apparently. I don’t know what it was or why it’s here, only that we shouldn’t look at it. With a little more careful study, I could figure out which level of mnestics reveals it.”

“Think it’s something to alert the Foundation over?” John asked.

“If the Book has never pointed us at it, then, presumably, it’s not a serious threat. Most people driving through New York aren’t under the influence of powerful mnestics.”

“But if it’s got an antimemetic field, would the Book even be able to warn us in the first place?”

“There are different kinds of antimemetic effects. That one doesn’t prevent people from knowing about it; it simply prevents them from noticing it with their senses. We might have trouble locating it, but we could certainly go after it if we needed to.”

He gazed at Nathan. “Nathan seems immune to whatever’s been affecting us, not that that does us much good. As to other effects… we’ve encountered a few that didn’t affect him, so I suppose it’s possible that he’s immune to the sort of mind-affecting forces that target humans. But we don’t know which effects specifically target _humans_ … and testing his capabilities out would be highly dangerous to him, and I’m not willing to put him at that much risk for what could be a very minor tactical advantage.

“That is part of what separates us from the Foundation,” he said, frowning. “They’re willing to sacrifice people for knowledge, and we’re not.”

Nathan, though, gripped the tip of one hand with the other and pulled it up, his crinkly smile amused. “ _I’m unique_ ,” Harold translated, thinking that Nathan might well have been laughing were it not for the fact that he didn’t have a diaphragm to contract or an airway to let the sound out. Five years without laughter; it was a minor detail in the life that Nathan had been thrust into, but it did seem like a melancholy loss. And whether or not Nathan was bothered by that loss, Harold did miss sharing a laugh with him.

They drove on a bit, while Harold thought back to his times in the Library. The means of entry, through mirrors; the way that the Library appreciated those with a deep connection to written material, even without words, and would help out those who could truly enjoy books of any kind. What counted was deriving pleasure from the material, whether that meant wading into a good story or increasing your appreciation of new concepts, new data about the world. And, equally, how the Library resisted those who used books merely for cold data, without the pleasure of either story or personal enrichment. In its eyes, such people weren’t even _alive_.

Whether the Library was itself alive… Harold had spent a couple of decades living there, and he still didn’t know. It certainly didn’t meet the criteria for being a creature, but it did communicate, and seemed to have, well, a mind of its own.

From the front seat, John chuckled. “Funny thing is, you know who it likes more than it likes you? Leon Tao, of all people. Started reacting to him like some sort of puppy dog.”

Harold had to grin at the memory. “Ah, yes, it took a real liking to our Mr. Tao… apparently because he takes great delight in learning new forms of mischief, and has an unexpected fondness for the folk tales centered around King Arthur.”

“Do you know,” John said, “the last time I saved his life -- that time that his Changeling nature got revealed -- he got practically terrified at the thought of going back inside the Library. I thought it might be the charms, but he’s probably more wigged out by the way things keep changing to help him, but never where he can observe the change.”

Harold nodded, frowning. “I can’t imagine that it would be any less attached to me. However, it’s possible that the cultists will have endeared themselves to the Library as well; they appreciate amassing knowledge, if only to further their cause.”

“Too bad they didn’t start burning books,” John mused from the driver’s seat. “That place would’ve ousted them on its own.”

Harold chuckled at the thought, before growing sober again. “There are far too many entrances to guard,” he said; “it’s one of our few advantages.” Of course, The Order would likely have destroyed as many mirrors as they could manage, but it was a large area -- most of Manhattan, some part of Brooklyn, even a little bit of New Jersey -- and their numbers were too limited to keep track of what private businesses and individuals were doing.

Besides, all Harold needed was a mirror the size of his palm, maybe even less than that. His facility with entering the Library had rather flummoxed John when he’d first tried to trail his employer. It was John’s turn to chuckle at a memory: rounding a corner to find his quarry nowhere in sight, despite Finch’s limp and low mobility and the lack of obvious hiding spaces. _And, Mr. Reese, we'll meet on my schedule. Not yours._

As Harold had explained to him later, while discussing the Library’s capabilities: He’d simply ducked behind a car, finished the call, and then pulled himself through a car mirror and straight into the Library.

“The Library is, like me, defended far better through secrecy than through any direct show of force. Once that was broken… well, I’ve been doing my best to stay one step ahead of those who are after me, and the Library… it didn’t have that option.”

And the Foundation had known about the Library for just under two years -- but it wasn’t the lack of knowledge that was keeping them away. For all its power, the Foundation did have a grasp on its own limitations -- _some_ of them, at least -- and it was just as invested in secrecy as Harold was. Briefly exposing their operation to the public might’ve been feasible before 9/11, when they’d had plenty of supplies, amnestics of various strengths and capabilities, but trying to keep such a public event under wraps had all but exhausted their stockpiles.

And high-quality, wide-dispersal amnestics weren’t that easy to acquire. Each month, the Foundation sacrificed dozens of Theta-class prisoners to retrieve the limited supply of the substance they’d found… and even fifteen years after 9/11, they hadn’t anywhere _near_ enough stockpiled to risk a turf war with The Order over a place that easy to breach.

Of course, the Library wasn’t entirely defenseless; Harold’s brows drew together and he sucked in a breath as he recalled one of the darker moments of his time in that place. Dillinger, the mercenary he’d briefly employed, who had betrayed Casey and tried to take off with a satchel of anomalous items -- including the Book, and the notepad that Nathan was stuck in at the time. When Harold had intervened, Dillinger had struck him… and then, as he was falling, the Library floor had risen up and caught him with its own carpet, showing Harold just how flexible it could be when it wasn’t trying to hide its own nature.

It had almost killed Dillinger. Likely would have, if he hadn’t dropped Nathan and the Book and run for the nearest mirror; it threw him out, and peeled the satchel off him as it did. The Library certainly didn’t like bloodshed within its walls. Or, for that matter, anything that damaged books. It was possible -- though he couldn’t be certain -- that they’d have some leeway for self-defense, but he truly didn’t want to risk it.

They were at a disadvantage, but there wasn’t much they could do about it. Harold swallowed as he recalled the last time he’d been in the clutches of The Order… and how, if John hadn’t rescued him, he’d be in a collar now. For one group or the other.

“Which is why I don’t like this plan,” John growled from the front seat.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have a choice,” Harold said, knowing full well that John’s objection was more than mere concern about the consequences to the world. “Without the Allseer, we have no way to learn what’s been targeting us, and why, or how to stop it. It’s no use trying to protect me from all known dangers when I might be the next person here that everyone forgets.”

John pulled into a parking space, turned off the car, and gripped the steering wheel tight for a moment. Then he straightened up and pulled his SIG. “All right, then -- let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter split again. Go figure.
> 
> There's one more piece before this "section" concludes. Hope to get it up soon, if I can conquer this writer's block.


	6. Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How hard can it be to find a good mirror?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know that part about not biting off more than you can chew?
> 
> I totally ignored that part. Whoops.
> 
> But, I have completed the last section of Part 3. Which is this chapter and the next, which I'm posting both at the same time here (but it made sense to split them).
> 
> I hope (I hope I hope) to have Part 4 (a smaller section) up tomorrow (Halloween). It will end with a giant cliffhanger. Part 5, which I had intended to post as the Halloween update, get moves back to about a week into November.
> 
> On the up side, giant cliffhanger! So you guys might get to stew on that for a while ^_^

John had parked somewhat inside the perimeter; they were well in range here, and the first task would be to find a decent-sized mirror.

As they blended into the crowd, John took point (SIG carefully concealed but still in hand). Behind him, Harold limped along at his normal speed, the strap of his bookbag digging into his shoulder. Despite the disguise scarf, Harold felt eerily like all eyes were on him.

Each teammate had his own method of spotting outliers: Harold could pick up on those with anomalous effects, while John had the training to spot anyone from the major groups of interest. So it was a little surprising that they didn’t spot a single cultist… or agent… or anyone suspicious at all.

Harold itched to ask the Book what was going on, but he didn’t dare reveal its existence in public; they’d have to wait until they were shielded.

Despite the likely futility, they checked a few public restrooms first. Still trying to avoid the impression that they were a group, John let Harold go in alone, while he kept an eye on their surroundings. The earpiece kept them connected in case of an emergency; an enemy wouldn’t be able to capture Harold and escape from the only exit, and Harold was in disguise and confident about bluffing his way out of danger for at least a couple minutes… all of which didn’t ease John’s irritation with letting Harold out of his sight. Still, he didn’t fuss too much: Harold could spot hazards that John couldn’t, and John didn’t want to be caught off guard like he had been at Raul’s.

Harold was glad of their tactics when he spotted a cognitohazard in the second men’s room.

Predictably, The Order had gotten rid of the mirrors -- and left random tags to make it seem like gang activity. One of the tags was a Foundation symbol, again designed to piggyback on their instinctual training; Harold gave John a heads-up, and briefly considered dismantling it.

“What’s it do?” John asked, staying outside for the moment.

“It’d make you avoid your own reflection. Which is, I would imagine, a rather effective deterrent.”

“Leave it up. It reduces the chance of the Foundation getting a foothold in this area.”

Harold nodded, then chuckled at himself (no one was around to see the nod), and left the symbol alone. They walked quite a ways before trying yet another restroom.

It was as they were leaving the fourth fruitless attempt, as Harold was already considering where else to look -- regular shops were too obvious, and any mirrors they might have would be too exposed -- that a sudden explosion rocked the city, setting off a few car alarms.

Then, before Harold could even orient himself, a second explosion. And a third, a fourth; people were already pulling out their phones, hurrying toward the explosions or away, a growing murmur of panic in the streets.

“That’s… odd timing,” Harold rejoined. At least they could be sure it wasn’t an anomalous event; the Book hadn’t said anything about more events today. Unless it was shielded by a powerful aversion effect… but, in that case, they wouldn’t be able to do much about it anyway.

“If it helps distract The Order, let’s not waste the opportunity,” John said. “Where we going, Finch?”

Pushing back into a corner where two types of stonework met up, Harold leaned on the wall to get a little weight off his back, and considered. Security mirrors wouldn’t work; the employees would be specifically monitoring them. Same problem with the large mirrors that tried to make small restaurants look bigger than they really were. They needed something large, and hidden, a place unlikely to attract cultist attention.

Surely a few people in the area owned large mirrors, but trying to locate the right homeowner would take far too long, and put them at even greater risk of discovery. But if not that… if not the regular shops, the restaurants, department stores… Harold glanced around at the nearby businesses, one after another useless. Maybe a hotel? He could rent a suite, hope that it had a full-size mirror, but that might--

Wait.

Across the street: an antiques shop.

A disquieting frisson tingled down his spine at the thought of braving an antiques shop again… his last encounter had been less than pleasant. Of course, this time he had allies with him, well versed in spotting and defending against the unusual; besides, they weren’t going to run up against another case like the one he’d been tracking at the time, that beautiful face-stealing woman who turned people into trinkets.

Harold’s dislike for antiques shops was less about danger and more about sensory overload… but he could put up with that.

Because a shop like this was likely to carry mirrors.

John went in first; Harold let a good minute pass before he steeled himself and stepped through the door.

The shop was crowded with merchandise, most of it perfectly normal -- but, of course, Harold’s powers weren’t restricted to anomalies; they worked just as well on mundane equipment, screaming out to him what each item could do. A few items pulsed brightly with the warning of anomalous properties, waiting for him to suss them out if he got near enough to study them, but they were almost lost behind the more-than-visual cacophony of practically anything with moving parts: latches and hinges; dials, buttons, switches, and gears; all the clocks, the visible light bulbs and half-hidden clasps for clothing, phonographs, musical instruments, spray bottles… it had him reeling before he’d gone more than a few steps.

Suddenly blind, he stiffened up instantly; then, nodding, he closed his eyes. With his world thus restricted to the non-visual, Harold carefully made it through the main floor.

He was glad that his eyes were closed; music boxes and watches had some of the most intricate mechanisms and, thus, the most information conveyed to him all at once.

Near the front of the shop, John was making small talk with whoever was running the counter, learning that the artwork was in the attic, the books and clothing on the second floor (including, she noted in a slightly louder voice, _some vintage Braille editions from the 1800’s, in French, German, and English_ ), and the furniture and vintage appliances in the basement.

Harold risked a quick glance at the clerk, but didn’t notice anything beyond the silver buckle on her cap and the hinges of her glasses. As John flirted -- not much, but enough to keep the lady’s attention -- he blindly headed toward the stairs.

Descending into the cool, musty darkness was disconcerting, but Harold managed it, one step at a time, balancing carefully as he went. Within moments, John had joined him, his quick and efficient steps nearly soundless.

Thankfully, they were the only patrons. The basement was quite secluded, and stuffed to the gills with random objects; Harold had risked another glance then gone back to the comforting blindness.

“Got one,” came John’s darkly triumphant growl, and soon Harold was blinking and squinting at a half-size mirror with a simple frame, set up in the back corner. Through the reflection, he could see a good portion of the floor; his powers didn’t work through reflections, which was a relief. On the one side, vintage outfits and hanging rugs blocked the sight of the stairs; on the other, they were shielded by shelves of knick-knacks and some vertical ice chests.

When Harold finally gathered himself, he moved to approach the mirror, thinking only to verify that it was connected -- but John held out an arm.

“Book first.”

“Oh, o-of course.” Harold set his bag on a nearby shelf and pulled out the Book, flipping to the first blank page.

Before he could work out which questions to ask, John growled, “Who’s setting off explosions, anyway?”

 _Friend_ , came the quick reply. _Distracting The Order_.

“Explosions… is it Shaw?” John asked, a sharp edge to his tone. No one else he knew of was the type to be using bombs in the city, but Shaw… if she’d come back, if she’d escaped…

 _Not Shaw. Forgotten ally_.

Eyes shooting wide, Harold shut the Book. When John’s eyes narrowed, his expression turning mutinous, Harold shook his head. “Remember, the memory aversion effect can bleed out to other knowledge. We can’t go hunting for information this way. Not until we’ve dealt with the main cause.”

John looked away.

A moment later, he looked back, his face a carefully schooled blank. “All right. Get info on what we’re walking into.”

Opening the Book again, Harold found a blank page. “Any more information that can help us once we’re in there?”

 _No additional anomalous threats_ , the words scrawled out. _Cultists won’t be distracted long; haste advised_.

“All right, I’m going in. Five minutes -- if I’m not back in five, get to safety.”

Harold took a deep breath and nodded. “Of course.”

“Glad to hear it,” John said low, his neon-bright Hypersensate flash gun already in his hand. As he dialed it up, Harold winced; it wasn’t lethal, no, but the gloves had truly come off.

With a last nod, John crouched low, laid his hand on the mirror, and vanished in a sudden ripple of movement.

Harold positioned himself to see as much as he could through the reflection, without being too close to the mirror itself. Unfortunately, there were clocks on the wall near the mirror, and dozens of can openers and tiny nutcrackers on the nearby shelves, well within his peripheral vision. As much as he braced himself and tried to maintain _some_ level of usefulness, the sensations were too much; his eyes, already watery, began to overflow, tears streaming as though they could protect him from a light no one else could see.

It was no use; he closed his eyes, too relieved at the notion to fight it, and leaned against a thick rug hanging on the wall, trying not to visualize what might be happening to John while they were apart.

Realizing that he was trembling, he shook his head, and slumped down a little. “Can’t fight them all,” he murmured. “Even John… can’t…” He breathed. “It’s the only thing I can see to do,” he said miserably. “I don’t even know if it’ll help. It’s the same thing I’ve been doing all my life: Trying to stay three steps ahead of capture or death.” He sucked in a shuddering breath. “Maybe it’s finally caught up with me.”

Rubbing his arms, suddenly cold, Harold wondered if the day would end with him in the clutches of The Order.

“I used to be running from the Foundation,” he said. “I was terrified of them, and they didn’t even know about me. Now I’ve got The Order after me as well, and, thanks to my own foolishness, both of them know _exactly_ what they stand to gain when they catch me. Or if, by some miracle, I manage to evade them entirely… we’re living in a world where small random things can destroy you. Put on a hat, eat a piece of fruit, drive down the wrong street one day…” He shook his head. “Most people don’t even realize until it’s too late.

“But it’s pointless,” he protested. “All our resistance… it’s hopeless. We scurry around, try to survive. Help some people, while we can. Hope that our deaths mean something… leave a legacy behind… but humanity is at the mercy of forces we can’t even _perceive_ , much less defend ourselves against. Does it even matter that a few people live a few more years?”

His chin trembled; he wanted to sink down, to bury his head in his hands. To hide under the covers until the world was as simple and predictable as he’d imagined it, back in childhood. “Sometimes I wish that I’d never known any of this. That I could live my life oblivious to the true nature of the world.”

As he tried to take deep breaths, to calm his system down, he felt Nathan stepping onto his shoulder, snuggling in against his neck. Harold recalled with shame the moment when he’d finally given in and opened the Book, asked it to show him his friend -- and been hit with the reality of what had happened to Nathan, and where Nathan had been taken.

All because Harold had been so determined to stay out of it, and Nathan… Nathan was, in every way, the better man, and couldn’t bring himself to ignore people who needed help that no one else could give.

Shivering, Harold recalled, too, how Nathan’s plight had spurred him on to an act of sheer desperation: Sneaking his way into the Foundation lab in Jersey, ghosting after agents through the gates and down giant elevators into what once had been a mine, now converted into miles of underground facilities full of horrors that Harold had spent his life trying not to contemplate. Just a small exposure as a teen had scarred him for life, and yet here he was, steeling himself against the sights and sounds of suffering, pushing back the overflow of his own ‘gift,’ hacking into their system to locate Nathan, and smuggling him out: a scared and disoriented chalk drawing, carefully folded and kept next to Harold’s hammering heart as he cautiously worked his way back out of the facility.

He’d very nearly fainted when one of the researchers had looked straight at him and smiled eerily, clearly unaffected by the aversion field his cufflinks provided. The researcher had studied him for a moment, opened her mouth as if to call out, and then tilted her head, closed her mouth, and moved on. Harold had swallowed a mouthful of bile and held himself together long enough to make it to the car before breaking down into terrified tears; it had been a while before he’d been able to pull himself together enough to drive home.

(It was only later on, under a dose of mnestics, that he’d recalled what he hadn’t noticed the first time: The researcher had been floating along without any feet. Just blank space, starting at about the mid-calf. She’d been an anomalous entity quietly walking through the halls, ignored.)

“I’m sorry, Nathan,” Harold choked out, reaching up blindly to hold his friend a little closer. “I haven’t forgotten. I’m just… scared. Like always.” He nodded, firmly but cautiously, so as not to dislodge Nathan from his neck. “You’ve always been the brave one.”

He let out a despairing laugh. “I’ve occasionally done very brave and very foolish things,” he said, “but the fact remains that, for the majority of my life, I have made decisions based more on my own fear than on rational thought… let alone compassion. And on more than a few occasions, those decisions have had devastating consequences for the few people I hold most dear. I’ve kept my circle of friends quite small, not simply because of the vulnerability, but because I know far too well that… that I cannot be trusted with friends.”

“Nathan -- your son is still off on a pilgrimage through Sudan trying to hunt down a way to unseal his powers. Powers that could save innocent lives… but I was too scared to let him keep them, so I took them away. Ostensibly to keep him safe.

“Or the one time I actually fell in love. We had all of four months before I came to my senses and realized the kind of danger that I was putting her in, simply through association with _me_. I protected her by putting her in a cage, and the only difference between me and the Foundation is that the prisoners of the Foundation are _aware_ of the cage.

“And the worst part is, I chose that cage for her, without even consulting her, without considering any other options at all. The one thing I could think of that would keep her completely safe, or as safe is it is possible to be in this world… and when The Order found her anyway, despite all my precautions, I had John move her to another type of cage. I’ve stolen her life, twice now, and I’m too much of a coward to even correct the error.” He sighed. “She’s living in Milan, except… she’s off sync with the rest of the world, practically invisible to normal humans. Forgotten as soon as anyone’s attention focuses on something else. She’s unable to be targeted by enemies… and equally unable to make any friends.

“So, you see, I can’t even be trusted with friendship. Because of my fear.”

His stomach turned over.


	7. Among the Shelves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've finally made it to the Library, but things aren't going to be that easy.
> 
> (Either for the characters or for the writer, apparently. That's not a statement on the meta elements of this fic.)

The mirror’s surface rippled again, and John was stepping out, motioning to them to come inside. Harold breathed a sigh of relief.

As the mirror admitted him back into the old, familiar place of what used to be safety, Harold felt the tingle of its pleasure at seeing him again. The place couldn’t exactly be called an entity, but it did have something approaching awareness, and Harold’s love of both research and stories had endeared him to the Library like no one else. Not only had the Library found ways to make life easier on Harold at every turn -- twisting its own dimensions to provide him easier access to wherever and whatever he was after at the time -- but it had also gone out of its way to teach Harold its secrets.

Right now, both traits would be useful.

On the floor as Harold entered were three cultists. Not unconscious, but clearly disoriented and in the throes of sensory overload, no doubt wishing that they had the mercy of being blind and deaf. John’s Hypersensate wasn’t lethal, but it wasn’t exactly merciful, either. The effects only lasted twenty minutes or so, but they effectively kept the victims out of the fight… not to mention silent, because when the sound of your own pulse was an agony, you didn’t dare cry out or even breathe too loud.

“Where we going, Finch?” John growled low, not out of compassion for the cultists but the awareness that other enemies might be nearby.

Harold glanced around. Shouldn’t there be dozens of cultists here? They kept the Foundation out more through numerical advantage than through any real show of force. Were they really all caught up with those explosions?

He opened the Book to a blank page. “Why aren’t there any guards? Or, well, so few guards?”

 _Operations threatened_ , the Book declared. _More important than guarding Library_.

John growled. “I don’t care how many threats we aren’t seeing; we’re not gonna spend any more time in here than we have to. Let’s _go!_ ”

Nodding, Harold turned around, getting his bearings. The Library was different every time you entered, but there were certain features that could be relied upon. With practiced ease, he headed off between the endless shelves, turning at seemingly random spots as Nathan clung to the side of his neck and John followed close on his heels. Around them, the shelves shifted, closing off paths behind them and obscuring view of more than a few feet in any direction.

“I thought you said that this place made navigation easy for you,” John groused.

“The chamber of the Allseer is deliberately obscured,” Harold said calmly. “Having anyone be able to reach it from the entrances would be… not a good thing, John, believe me. It took me months to run across it the first time, and I hope we’re lucky enough that The Order hasn’t located it these past two years.”

As he walked, the carpeted floor silent beneath his feet, Harold felt a wave of helpless nostalgia. For more than twenty years, this had been the place where he’d spent nearly every waking hour; it was the place he’d felt the safest, the least vulnerable to discovery or capture. Yet now, it was a threat… and even if they dealt with the threat of The Order, it would be impossible for this place to ever be home again.

He’d been chased out of his home in Lassiter… and he’d been chased out of this place, too. How many other places would he be chased out of before he finally couldn’t run anymore?

Sighing, he paused to run a hand over a shelf, fondly… and there, between copies of _The Invisible Man_ (Ellison, without the definite article, and Wells, with it), was a shining light, silvery lavender, declaring the object’s use as a strong antimemetic.

His cufflinks.

His breath caught as he picked them up, and raised his eyes to the boundless rows of books above them. “You’ve been saving them for me, haven’t you?” Quickly, he pulled off his existing cufflinks, placed them on the shelf, and replaced one side with the anomalous ones; then, recalling that John was on Tier Four mnestics, put on the other half as well. The cultists would ignore him, but the effect, useful as it was, was only a Tier Three. “Thank you,” he said with a slight bow, and turned to continue their journey through the rows of shelves.

If there were other cultists within the maze of bookshelves, they didn’t run into them, or even hear them nearby; Harold was tense enough that he couldn’t even call it a blessing. Nathan held tight to his collar, a slight but comforting weight.

Then, without warning, the shelves parted before them, and the Allseer loomed high above, seemingly so much higher than the Library itself could go, even though the Library was already like dozens of libraries stacked on top of each other. But this chamber… it surpassed the rest of the place, like Mount Everest surpassing foothills.

The structure itself wound down to a central beam, down to a thin silvery-purple crystal, suspended in mid-air and glittering, as if tiny sparks of energy were escaping it -- or being consumed by it.

Just glancing at the crystal let Harold know exactly how to operate the Allseer, as it had the first time. Its task, the controls, the warnings: All was as clear to him as his knowledge of birdsong, bright and obvious and natural. Without that, his first encounter with it might well have been his last.

His memories of those few seconds were dim, but he recalled it being bad enough to wrench himself away almost instantly, and lie there on the floor sobbing for long minutes thereafter. He’d never intended to use the crystal ever again.

Of course, his first encounter hadn’t had a purpose beyond mere curiosity. This time, they had a purpose -- and no time to delay.

Harold set Nathan on the floor, and cautiously faced the Allseer. “When I’m done with this,” he said, “I’m going to be effectively blind. I may be incoherent for a while.” He pulled a stretchy plastic bracelet out of his pocket and turned back to hand it over, along with his bookbag. “In case you need to move me before I’m quite together again… put it on my wrist, and I’ll be one eighth of my normal mass. I’ll be far less of an encumbrance if I’m lighter. Besides,” he added with an awkward frown, “if you have to swing me over your shoulder, it should be less traumatic to my injuries. Just be careful with my neck.” He sucked in a breath. “Also, if I touch this thing for more than two minutes, the effect on my sanity may be irreversible. So at the minute and a half mark, if I haven’t let go, get me off of it. Don’t touch it yourself.”

“Got it,” John said.

“I never had anyone watching me the first time, so I don’t know what it looks like from the outside. I may go through contortions or cry out. Whatever happens, don’t pull me free early; I can get loose if I need to, but we need the info enough to risk the side effects.”

John’s murmured assent was far from happy, but at least it was assent.

“Besides the recording, try to write down anything I say. It might not come out in recordable form.” He nodded and took a deep breath. “Got that timer ready? Begin,” he said, reaching forward to touch the crystal.

* * *

The chill was instant and straight through the bone to the aethereal essence of his being -- not as if heat had been taken away, or as if heat had never existed, but as though he were somehow existing on a plane where heat was fundamentally not a concept related to any part of his being. The heat of fear and pain and horror were gone too, leaving clinical detachment; that was necessary, because the info rushing through his awareness was impossible enough to handle on its own, let alone if he could react to it with any significant emotion.

Everything around him, every detail, even molecule, atom, quantum particle; he knew them and their states. The entire Library lay bare before his gaze: the man behind him, the rag doll at his feet holding the recording device, the cultists streaming in through the mirrors, burrowing through the shelves, trying to locate the intruders.

And he also saw, and fully understood, the entity that had come into their midst… its nature, its purpose, its desires, pure and uncomplicated. How he had unwittingly triggered it, simply by delving into the wrong book. And, from the assets at his disposal, the most obvious way to counter the effect -- along with how unlikely it would be to get in there safely, and which assets would best improve their chances.

The solution would hurt John, more deeply than Harold had ever hurt John before, but the knowledge was just that: knowledge. No emotions connected to the idea, just the awareness of their existence, the connection between elements.

 _Lassiter_ , he called out. _Antim hazard, knowledge is danger_. But they needed enough knowledge to solve the problem, and he was going to forget all this the moment he let go. How to phrase it in a way that revealed the solution without letting John know? _I’m the key_ , he said.

Then, also: _Haste. Fifteen cultists just entered the building_.

* * *

Harold’s gasp upon touching the crystal conveyed something deeper than pain, and he stiffened up, eyes rolling back in his head. Mere seconds went by before he was crying out words, most of which didn’t matter to John as soon as Harold said _fifteen cultists_.

Before John could even step in, Harold was stumbling back, free of the crystal, crying out in wordless distress, collapsing, his eyes staring sightless.

Besides Harold’s warning, John could already hear the rustle of fabric far off through the maze of bookshelves.

John swept Nathan up and tucked him inside his shirt, and they were on the move.

The shelves parted around them like waves, closing in behind, blocking access to their pursuers; the Library had chosen its side. But their luck couldn’t hold forever. When John turned a corner and spotted a pair of cultists ahead of him, he took them out with the Hypersensate before they could make a sound -- but they were only the first.

The next few minutes were a blur, with John taking out anyone he saw. Getting Harold to safety meant the mirrors, if they could find one; the lack of easy access cut both ways.

One of the cultists got his gun out before John had taken out his allies, but the floor beneath them roiled, and the bullet went wide; some big doorstopper of a book suddenly fell from a shelf and hit him on the head. The man probably wasn’t dead, but John certainly didn’t envy him the headache he’d have when he woke up.

At length, they got in sight of the mirrors, glimpsed in snatches between the moving scenery. But the Library seemed a little picky about which one to let them use; the maze directed them away from the first few sets until John’s frustration got the better of him and he swept a line of books onto the floor.

“Harold’s practically your _pet!_ ” he growled. “We’re trying to save him -- help us get him out of here!” But the shelves continued to direct them away.

Another shot rang out, and again the floor undulated beneath them; the shot grazed John’s shoulder, and immediately the shooter was catapulted into the air, stories high all at once, shrieking. They didn’t stick around to see if he survived the fall.

A minute later, with John out of breath, they stopped to get their bearings, on alert for any other cultists in the area.

“Let me up,” Harold said, struggling a little; he got to his feet, and stowed the bracelet in his pocket again. “I still can’t see right. It’s all just blobs of color… I can’t--”

“Here,” John said, and placed Nathan on Harold’s shoulder again. “He can at least tell you which direction to run.

“But why isn’t it--”

More shouts rang out as yet more cultists spotted them, and whatever Harold had meant to say got lost in the exchange. Someone had gotten the message around; the cultists had put away their guns, and instead came close enough to throw punches. Which wasn’t an improvement: John’s skill with hand-to-hand combat was hardly equaled by the random citizens who’d joined The Order. As they got hemmed in, at least the Library didn’t object to the attacks… at least, noticeably.

When finally the way lay open on one side, John barked “ _Go!_ ” -- but Harold was already heading down through the shelves as John held the rear. He wanted to stay with John -- wanted to ensure that they didn’t leave John behind, to be captured or killed, maybe even turned over to the Foundation in exchange for something more valuable to The Order -- but he knew that he couldn’t help John by staying in danger.

The movement of Nathan’s hands kept Harold moving, as fast as he could go without falling, but the world around him was still more like a kaleidoscope than anything recognizable. “We need -- to find -- the mirrors,” he gasped out, hoping that the Library would pay attention. 

Before they’d made it far, they spotted the mirrors up ahead -- the way blocked by a small group with menacing expressions. “Take him alive!” one of them shouted, the order coming a little late, as several shots rang out, to Harold’s horror.

Harold fell sideways, catching himself on a bookshelf. The cultists -- what was left of them, after the shooters had been dealt with -- ignored him as they rushed past. More shots rang out.

Then the bookshelves parted, and John was there, wiping blood off his face with the back of his hand. His eyes narrowed.

Harold pointed. “John, we have to--”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All righty, that concludes Part 3, which _was_ supposed to be just a single chapter. Me and my ballooning chapters; I hope the ride was worth it.
> 
> Hope to get Part 4 (much shorter) up tomorrow (Halloween), but we'll see. The Finale should be posted in November.
> 
> My apologies for the delay, but: Can confirm, writer's block sucks.


	8. Analyses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having escaped the cultists, Harold and John try to work out what Harold's instructions mean, and what their next move should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My deepest apologies for the delay. I won't even bother with excuses (though those of you in email contact with me are free to ask for details). It's here now; let's move on.
> 
> There's one more section before the finale, and I expect that the finale might be split up a bit like these other chapters have been split, so we're looking at some 10-12 pieces once all is said and done. Dunno if I'll finish before the new year; we'll see. Predicting my workflow and sticking to a schedule are not exactly easy for me.

“We have to get out of here,” John said, keeping an eye out for more cultists as they hurried toward the mirrors. This time, he didn’t insist on going first, but turned around to watch behind them as Harold placed his hand on the glass, mentally thanked the Library for its assistance, and pulled himself through, materializing in a dark room.

The lack of light did nothing to block Harold’s powers; shining out like neon beacons were all the light switches, the locks on the nearby cabinets, the magnetic clips on the whiteboard, and every tiny movable device on every piece of lab equipment on the tables and counters that he couldn’t directly see. The scent of odd chemicals hung in the air.

He jerked when a hand touched his shoulder, but it was only John, silent as ever. “Think I dropped my flashlight back there,” he murmured. “What are we looking at?”

“It’s a chem lab,” Harold replied.

“Meth?” John said tensely.

“No -- I think we’re in another school. High school, maybe a college… there’s too much redundancy to be a functional laboratory.”

“Oh,” John said, slightly less tense. “You can see the door?”

“Of course.” The only doors he couldn’t perceive were those without knobs, handles, latches, or locks, and whose hinges were concealed behind very thin cracks; even those, he could usually make out the hinges from the right angle.

“Then let’s get out of here,” John said, giving Harold’s shoulder a comforting squeeze.

Nodding his agreement, Harold limped forward, glad for the continued weight of John’s hand to keep him steady. The awareness of the mechanisms around him wasn’t sight-like enough for his brain to really rely on it for balance.

But there was a sudden tug on his collar -- Nathan pulling frantically at the fabric. Harold stopped short.

“What is it?” John asked.

In the darkness, Harold had no way to communicate with Nathan; he hurried over to the light switches, knowing instantly which one to use. As soon as the lights were on, John was scanning the room for threats, while Nathan threw a curled hand toward the mirror: _go back, go back_.

“We can’t go back,” Harold said, confused.

“Go back?” John asked, glancing at the mirror. Nathan continued to gesture, almost wild with some concern he couldn’t adequately convey.

“Nathan, there’s too many in there. And we got the info we need… and my cufflinks. It’s too dangerous to try for anything more.”

“No, I get it,” John said. “The cultists can come after us. But I bet they’re not as schooled as you are in hopping through mirror shards.” With that, he grabbed a pair of tongs from the table, hefted them to get a feel for the weight, and threw them straight at the mirror, shattering it completely. He turned back toward the door. “Let’s go.”

Nathan’s hold on Harold’s collar jerked when the glass shattered; Harold reached a hand up to keep him from falling as Nathan plopped down on his shoulder and tucked in tight against his neck.

As they left the room, John turned off the lights again; it took them a while to make their way out of what turned out to be a basement, but Harold’s awareness of the doors, sprinklers, fire alarms, clocks, and other random objects kept them going at a good pace. Navigating got easier as they neared the stairs and found their way up to places where daylight was streaming in.

When they pushed through the doors to the outside, the alarm started up, but John just strode across the playground and onto the sidewalk, heading down the street. By the time Harold had caught up to him, he’d hot-wired a sedan.

Sliding into the back passenger seat, Harold winced at the sight of tiny glass cubes all over the driver’s seat. John didn’t seem to mind; he waited only long enough for Harold to get buckled in before he was on the road, carefully following traffic rather than drawing attention by going any faster. His arm was casually resting on the windowsill, his upper body relaxed; only Harold was in a position to note the undercurrent of tension in his partner.

This car didn’t have a seat cover, so Harold set Nathan down on the seat beside him. He turned his whole body, intending to buckle his friend in, but Nathan hopped off the seat onto the floor and burrowed under a jacket that lay just behind the driver’s seat.

“Nathan?” Harold blurted, confused. “What is it?”

For a long moment, the jacket didn’t move. But just as Harold was starting to get worried, Nathan fairly exploded out of the jacket, scrambling up the cup holder onto the seat and tearing into Harold’s bookbag, trying to drag out the Book. The giant tome was too heavy for him, obviously, so Harold helped him out, and opened it for him.

Nathan’s expressions weren’t always easy to read, but this was some combination of anger and horror. Looking up at Harold, he signed a quick, imperious flick of the wrist. The lack of a proper handshape made it somewhat ambiguous (one of the problems with Nathan’s brand of sign language), but Harold was pretty sure that he meant _look away_.

From his peripheral vision, Harold watched Nathan sign furiously at the Book, and then, seconds later, plop down as though he’d suddenly lost all the energy that had driven him a moment before. He landed on the edge of the seat and tumbled backward onto the floor.

Instead of picking himself up, though, he just lay there morosely, while Harold failed to come up with any reason for him to be acting this way. Was it simply a stress reaction to having survived that kind of attack? Where Harold had experienced more than his fair share of dicey situations, Nathan’s experience with combat was much more limited; the risk of being spotted by Foundation agents was too great for him to join them in the field. Besides, they’d been cautious with Nathan’s new body for months, before Shaw had taken it upon herself to test his resistance to fall damage.

When they’d first managed to turn him from a chalk drawing into a rag doll (with Harold terrified that he was about to kill his best friend, and Nathan adamantly declaring that practically _any_ change would be better than remaining in two dimensions), the team had treated him with kid gloves. Even after getting used to his new style of movement, Nathan himself had been understandably cautious. But then, one day, Harold had entered the subway to find Shaw casually tossing Nathan around, scooping him up whenever he tried to escape and giving him another fling across the room.

Horrified, Harold had quickly rescued his friend, then gotten ready to banish Shaw from their headquarters -- but Nathan, not traumatized so much as irritated, had talked him down (and flipped Shaw off in the only way he could now: the full-arm Italian salute).

However unwise the experiment, it had, at least, established just how durable his soft cloth body really was. Nowadays, the only part that Nathan was particularly careful with was his eyes, which seemed reasonable; they were made of hard black buttons, seemingly plastic, and much more likely to break than the rest of him. He’d completely lost his fear of heights; going from six-foot-two to nineteen inches meant that all the objects around him were effectively four times as tall as they used to be, yet jumping wasn’t harmful or even painful anymore.

So it was unlikely that he was hurt. But if it wasn’t--

“You gonna analyze those notes?” John asked. When Harold merely blinked at him, he clarified, “The things you shouted out while using the Allseer.”

“Oh! Yes, of course.” But then he was momentarily stymied. “Where did… someone took notes, right?”

“They should be… huh.” John reached inside his pocket, wincing as he had to twist on the seat a bit to get access, and pulled out the little recorder. He handed it back to Harold.

“Aren’t there written notes?” Harold asked, taking it.

“Guess not?” John replied. “Unless Nathan has some.”

Which was ridiculous, of course; Nathan couldn’t write fast enough to take any sort of notes, either with a pencil or with a phone. And John would have been too busy watching for cultists to take notes himself. But at least they had a recording… assuming that it worked.

On the recording, Harold gasped. Seconds later, he cried out, the words a little distorted but easy enough to make out: _Lassiter. Antim hazard; knowledge is danger._ A short pause, then _I’m the key. Haste: Fifteen cultists just entered the building._

Harold noted the words quickly, on the inside of the cuff that didn’t have the reminder about the timing of mnestic doses. He wanted to be sure that the information stayed with them.

Then it was time to muse over what, precisely, it meant.

 _Antimemetic hazard_ , that was clear enough. _Knowledge is danger_ meant that it was one of the worst.

“Why didn’t you just say _Infohazard_?” John asked.

Harold considered. “I suppose that I wanted to be more precise. Something that triggers an effect upon knowledge isn’t necessarily dangerous, though, of course, the Foundation would consider it dangerous regardless. But, for example… I can’t describe… ah… in the Foundation labs, you are an anomalous-- that is… ah, there is an effect that has been observed, that interferes with describing you-- ah.” He let out a breath. “You are a blue rubber duckie someone found, and you’re being kept in the Foundation labs. And it is impossible to talk about you in the normal way. That’s an example of infohazard, but not a harmful one.”

“I’m a rubber duckie?” John asked, raising an amused eyebrow.

“Look, _you_ trying describing yourself without saying--”

“So someone found you and-- hang on.”

“You see?”

“Yeah…” John said thoughtfully. “So they’ve put you in one of the labs…” He chuckled. “What kind of experiments do they run on you, anyway? Just try to figure out if they can write out the appropriate documentation without running into pronoun problems?”

“The point is, that’s one example I know of where an infohazard is essentially harmless. If I’ve described it as _knowledge is danger_ , then clearly we’re not dealing with something that sounds like a weird party game or an internet meme.”

“In other words, trying to get more of a handle on what’s happening might just make things worse.”

“Indeed. It presents a bit of a conundrum.”

“The cultists part is obvious… but what about you being the key?”

“That, I’m not so certain about. Maybe the Foundation… or The Order, or whoever set this off… maybe they specifically targeted me. It does seem to be people I’ve known. This could be one more way of trying to get me, just by reducing my set of allies until I have no one left to rely on.”

“We’d best be extra careful, then.”

“Yes. Of course… that becomes a problem, because of the first thing I said.”

“What, Lassiter?”

“If I said it first, then I probably considered it the most important piece of information to get across. And Lassiter… Mr. Reese, that’s the town I grew up in.”

John’s face lit up a little; he always enjoyed getting little glimpses into the parts of Harold that normally stayed hidden. “So we’re going to visit your hometown, huh?”

“That’s the problem, Mr. Reese. Lassiter isn’t a town anymore. After the Foundation found out about the anomaly… they moved everyone to another location, used targeted mnestics and a disinformation campaign to make people think that the new town had been there forever, and added in some gaslighting compounds that make conflicting memories seem like just the remnants of weird dreams.

“They even went so far as to alter all the digital maps to establish Audubon and erase Lassiter; even Google Earth has been hacked to show nothing but empty fields. You’ll only ever find the original layout on some of the older printed maps, and even many printed maps have been altered or destroyed. The ones that actually show Lassiter seem to be showing a paper town, nothing more.”

“A paper town?”

“An old trick used to catch copycats. A mapmaker finds some empty space on the map and invents a town that doesn’t exist, so if someone breaks copyright, it’s easy to prove in court. As far as the world is concerned, Lassiter’s not even a ghost town. In real life, though, it’s essentially Foundation territory, a giant installation built up to contain the unmovable dimensional rift that I went through that day.”

“Then we’re going to infiltrate one of the Foundation labs.” John sighed. “Are we checking off some sort of sadistically suicidal bucket list?”

“Well… we have my cufflinks; that’s more than we had when we tackled The Order back there. And we got out safely, nobody captured or killed, so… if I believed in luck anymore, I guess I’d call that a good sign.”

“The cufflinks might not be enough to evade their security. Which is something you can’t know until we’re already in danger.”

“That is true,” Harold said. “Nevertheless… we are again left with no useful alternatives. I sought out the best source of information available, and this is the information it gave us. It’ll be a while before the pieces make sense, but we have to keep moving forward.”

“I know,” John grumbled. “Doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

“If you have any suggestions, any other courses we could take, then, by all means, lay them out for me.”

“I don’t,” John said, voice dropped even lower, more like a growl than anything else. “You’re the only one who has a clue how to fight this, so I have to trust your instincts. But every instinct I have is telling me to run off and hide you somewhere safe. Lay low until we can work out a better plan.”

“Which, in this case, isn’t an option. Whatever is causing this effect, it doesn’t seem to be kept out by physical structures, or distance. It’s hitting us right where we live; there’s no hiding from it. For all we know, it could be riding along in my brain, so trying to run would be worse than useless.”

“Yeah. I get that.”

“We don’t even know how long before the next erasure happens. Oh!” he exclaimed, turning to pull the Book onto his lap. “How many people have we forgotten so far?”

The Book displayed a simple _four_. Harold took in a shuddery breath. “Four. We’ve lost four.”

“Wasn’t it two, this morning?”

“Yes.” The mnestics made that piece of recollection crystal clear. “They’re disappearing faster. We may not make it at all.”

“We gotta get there quick, right?”

“If we’ve any chance at all,” Harold said. “Head for Linden; if we get a decent plane, we might get there in, oh, six hours.”

“You’ve got the funds to charter a plane? And here I’ve been living off food trucks.”

“Two years ago, yes; I could’ve bought the plane on the spot, and wouldn’t have even had to check the price tag. Today? You’re not the only one surviving on such a limited budget.”

“Harold,” John drawled, “are we about to steal a plane?” Far from chiding, he sounded amused.

“Unless you can cajole someone into a six-hour flight that leaves within the next hour.”

John’s expression was both fond and exasperated, but at least it was a lot less world-weary than the one he’d been wearing since Harold had first explained the plan. Turning left, he headed for the Holland Tunnel.

“Why that facility, though?” he asked.

“I suppose we’ll have to figure that out when we get there. Maybe they’ve got records on unleashing this thing… or maybe it’s one of their prisoners.”

“Affecting us from all the way over there?”

“If it were within the realm of _perfectly explainable_ , then it wouldn’t fall under the Foundation’s purview.”

“Fair enough. So we get in there… you ghost around, I pretend to belong there, and we get whatever info we need to destroy or deactivate this thing. Without learning enough about it to cause problems. You never ask the impossible, do you?”

Harold frowned, and looked down at the Book again. “The dangerous knowledge part… is Nathan immune? If he found out about what’s really going on, would he be safe from its effects?”

 _Unknown._ So much for that idea.

“I wonder… it’s possible, Mr. Reese, that I saw the entity while using the Allseer, although, of course, I don’t remember it. Perhaps seeing the entity through certain types of anomalous effects averts the danger, in whole or in part.”

“Too bad the Allseer thing isn’t portable.”

“The thing is, the Allseer’s effects aren’t too dissimilar from the spy unit that I connected with inside that extradimensional space, back when I was seventeen. The way these things interact with the human brain… it’s like perceiving 3d space through a 2d lens. Or more like perceiving seven dimensions and trying to cram them into one and a half. The information ends up… twisted, bent, shattered, so that it can even be understood at all. It’s a long shot, but it’s possible that that’s the goal. Perhaps if I can enter the anomaly and use its interface to look around the labs…”

“ _If_ they still have the spy unit, and haven’t yet figured out what it does.”

“Yes. As I said, a long shot. But I might be able to understand what we’re fighting without triggering the effect. Enough, perhaps, to put an end to it.”

“I hate running blind,” John said. “I can’t be as effective if I’m getting incomplete information… if I can’t see the whole picture.”

“That’s probably why you never qualified for dealing with nonphysical hazards,” Harold countered. “Because that’s exactly what those types have to deal with. The kind of anomalous phenomena where seeing the whole picture can be lethal… or worse. The people who can adjust to that deliberate ignorance can deal with things that the rest of us simply aren’t mentally equipped to handle.”

“You’re making me glad that I failed all those aptitude tests.”

“Indeed. I’m no more comfortable with it than you are, Mr. Reese. But that’s what we have to work with.”

 

They got to Linden Municipal Airport in forty minutes, the traffic thankfully light; it was after 8 AM. Sinking back into the comfort of knowing that nobody was paying attention to him -- the cufflinks ensured it, and the glasses would notify him if the effect wasn’t as secure as he’d expected -- Harold checked out the possibilities, while John snuck around in Harold’s disguise scarf, getting a bead on any workers that they’d need to keep an eye on.

Harold picked out a raspberry-colored Mooney, the fastest choice available; even better, the wings were already fueled up. The short cabin made it a little hard for John to get inside, but at least he had enough leg room once they were settled; Nathan disappeared into the back as Harold started takeoff procedures.

Despite their hurry and John’s exasperation, Harold followed the checklist to the letter… aside from switching off the radio and transponder so they couldn’t be tracked. Once they were in the air, he set John’s phone to keep track of their location and help them steer clear of controlled airspace.

He worried, briefly, about what would happen if one of them forgot the other’s existence while they were flying. Of course, it wasn’t like the forgotten person would suddenly vanish for good; as he knew, all too well, being forgotten didn’t mean being unable to affect the world. They were both qualified to land the plane, so that wasn’t a worry… although, since John was far less skilled with small aircraft, Harold would still prefer to land the plane himself.

Then there was the question of how the loss of either of them would affect the mission.

If John forgot Harold, Harold would simply have to infiltrate the installation on his own; John likely wouldn’t remember why they were going there. If Harold forgot John, well… he couldn’t imagine John doing anything less than protecting him the whole way. And, as a bittersweet bonus, he’d be imperceptible to any Foundation agents who’d known him previously, or those who were hunting for him now.

So they were going to do okay -- for the moment -- if they didn’t manage to solve the problem before it could strike again. That was… not exactly a weight off his mind, but at least it helped to quell the panic at the idea of forgetting his best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't yet read the other fics and listened to the first audio file, now might be a great time to do that!

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man... the delays. So much for getting this entire thing together during October! Predicting my own productivity is one of my least effective skills :\
> 
> There's one more piece to come before the finale hits. The finale will likely be broken up over multiple sections. Not sure if I'll get it done before the new year, let alone before December, but we'll see. Hope the dramatic roller coaster has been enjoyable so far!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I do not care for Darkness](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16367801) by [PreachingtotheQuire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreachingtotheQuire/pseuds/PreachingtotheQuire)
  * [Day Of Memories.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16488563) by [bliphany](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bliphany/pseuds/bliphany)
  * [Сердце не камень (The Heart is Not a Stone)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16347008) by [Fringuello](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fringuello/pseuds/Fringuello)
  * [Ignition Point](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16280726) by [tenaya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenaya/pseuds/tenaya)
  * [Crimson Silk](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17771768) by [Tipsylex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tipsylex/pseuds/Tipsylex)




End file.
